


It's a Schitty Life

by modern_leper



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: AU, David knows his rom-coms, Falling In Love, Guardian Angel, It's a Wonderful Life, M/M, Season 1 David, Some Fluff, Some angst, You guys remember that episode of That 70's Show where Eric gets visited by an angel?, and a bunch of sass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modern_leper/pseuds/modern_leper
Summary: "You could be...no...you would be happy here.”“Are you fucking kidding me. Happy? In Schitt’s Creek?”“I know that’s hard for you to believe - ““Oh look, you really are omniscient.”“I know that’s hard for you to believe,” he repeated through gritted teeth, “but I can prove it to you. I can show you exactly who you could be if you stayed here.
Relationships: David Rose & OC, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose
Comments: 36
Kudos: 103





	1. There Aren't Enough Lifeboats for Everyone

**Author's Note:**

> The plot is 100% inspired by an episode of That 70's Show which was 100% inspired by It's a Wonderful Life. It also comes from me wondering what would have happened if David had met Patrick as soon as he got to Schitt's Creek, when he still would've give anything to leave. A question I decided to answer in the weirdest way possible.

David was getting out of Schitt’s Creek. It was a fucking miracle.

The circumstances that were going to get him out of this hell hole (he was in no mood to waste any effort on a shit hole pun) were less than ideal, but so were the circumstances that had landed him here in the first place. 

David had never subscribed to the idea that beggars can’t be choosers. It was, in fact, something he excelled at. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and as he stared up at the water stained ceiling and felt roughly fourteen separate springs from a mattress that was at least as old as he was digging into back, he had to admit that nothing summed up his current situation quite like the word desperate.

He would never have texted Ricardo otherwise. Ricardo. _Ricardo_. The word left a sour taste on his tongue and he wasn’t even saying it out loud. Ricardo, who had gotten David interrogated by the police after he swiped Scarlett Johanssen’s Bulgari clutch from the Vanity Fair Oscar Party just for shits and giggles. Ricardo, who had shown up to David’s thirtieth birthday high on molly and towing along an equally hard-rolling 18 year old NYU freshman named Clay, who had arrived in New York from Cleveland, Ohio all of three days before. Ricardo, who pulled the diplomatic immunity card more often than the average American might use their Costco card in a given year, please and thank you to his father, Ambassador Ricardo Fernando Velez Sr. 

Ricardo, the embarrassment.

Ricardo, the inconsiderate.

Ricardo, the man who kept an apartment in Chelsea year-round, and who had agreed to let David use it, rent free, after exacting a small but humiliating amount of groveling from his ex-lover. 

David could at least hold on to the small amount of dignity afforded to him by the fact that Ricardo didn’t qualify as an ex-boyfriend, or even ex-partner if you wanted to be vague in a way that the grandparents and conservative uncles would find incredibly frustrating. No, ex-lover was probably the most accurate description, and even that implied an overgenerous amount of affection than they had ever actually felt for one another.

Lack of affection notwithstanding, Ricardo was his ticket back to New York and far away from the motel that was the location he was most likely to be murdered at should he stay, if he didn’t first catch the kind of infection from the shower that modern day antibiotics were woefully under-powered to fight.

His parents had rolled their eyes when they heard the name associated with the source of his salvation, but offered no protest. Ricardo’s antics were infamous in the tomes of the Rose family history. Not fun infamous, like the time Alexis introduced Malala Yousafzaii to tequila on her twenty first birthday in the Maldives. Sad infamous, like all the reasons why no one wants to work with Chevy Chase anymore. 

But they had already accepted that if either of their children were going to get the hell out of dodge first, it would be David. Alexis was the globetrotter of the family and always had been, but David had a lower overall tolerance for hideous interior design choices and low thread count sheets.

Surprisingly, it was Alexis who had actually attempted to convince David to stay.

“Daaaaaavid,” she had pleaded, stretching out the first syllable to a degree that few were capable of, and at a pitch that hit the ears of all wildlife within a two mile radius of the motel. “David...David...David,” she repeated undeterred to his back as he packed up the few belongings he had bothered to take out in the twenty-four hours since they had arrived at the motel. 

“Daaaaaaaaaa-”

“Oh my fucking God Alexis, what?!” he finally snapped.

She sulked for a beat like a scolded child before throwing up her hands in a huff. “You can’t seriously be considering going back to New York with Ricardo!”

“I’m not considering it, I’m doing it.”

“But David, _he sucks_. You know he sucks. He’s embarrassed you at every major social event you attended the entire time you were dating-”

“We were never dating,” he interjected.

“Fine, screwing and doing coke together, same difference. The point is he was an ass whose biggest turn on was make you clean up after his messes, and now you’re going to go running back to him?”

David finally deigned to turn and face her. “First off, I am well aware of what a little shit Ricardo is and just how many of his messes I have had to clean up. I can never show my face at George Takei’s White Party again. But some might argue that all that means is that he owes me one. Or ten, or maybe even fifty. But in this case, I’ll settle for one ticket out of this creepy motel in the land that time forgot. And second, let’s not forget that all of two hours ago you were ready to pack your bags and ride off into the sunset with Stavros, the walking talking Greek bicep. Pot, kettle, now kindly fuck off.”

“Ugh, David,” Alexis pouted, “I just want to get out of here. I can actually feel the dust from the duvet cover settling into my pores.”

“Of course you want to get out of here, we all do! But it’s every man for themselves and unfortunately, much like the Titanic, there aren’t enough lifeboats for everyone.”

“So you’re really going to just leave us here?” 

David finished zipping up his toiletry bag (one of eight, specifically for nail and cuticle care), and allowed himself to collapse back onto the bed. “Yes, I am. First thing in the morning, I'm taking a taxi which will take me to a bus that will bring me to a train which will get me to the airport. From there, I’m only two connections and fourteen hours worth of layovers away from New York.” 

It wasn’t lost on David when Ricardo had forwarded him his travel itinerary that he had selected the most convoluted flight options available. Especially given that what should have been an hour and thirty minute straight shot to New York would now take roughly a full twenty four hours, and would take place by way of Tucson and Atlanta. Just another one of those little pranks that Ricardo was so fond of playing. David hadn’t missed them at all. But alas, beggars and choosers.

Alexis threw herself onto her own bed and screamed into the pillow.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned her solemnly. “Who knows what kind of hillbilly heads have drifted off to sleep on that thing.”

“Ew, David!” she cried as she flipped over and began to frown at the ceiling instead.

He looked over at her, studying her face for a moment. The pout was nothing new, it made an appearance at even the most mild of inconveniences, but underneath it there was an actual strain of hurt. He felt a small tug in his chest at the sight of it, one he resented almost immediately.

“Look, you can come stay with me as soon as I get settled, okay?” The offer was a begrudging one at best, but Alexis didn’t care.

She turned to face him hopefully. “I can come live with you?”

David threw up a hand. “Slow down there, I said visit. It’s a studio apartment for Christ’s sake. And I don’t know how Ricardo would feel about you staying there, I know there’s a lot of...tension between you to.”

“If he didn’t want to get called out for ripping off Jared Leto’s 2013 Oscar tux, then he shouldn’t have worn it to my skincare line launch party.”

“It was less a rip off and more of an homage,” David countered without much conviction.

“He literally stole it from Jared’s closet. There was a warrant out for him and everything.”

“Whatever, the fact remains that he probably wouldn’t be down with you making yourself at home his apartment.”

“Fine, just leave me here to rot with Mom and Dad, then. I’ll send you a weekly telegraph to let you know that we’re still alive. I’m not sure this town actually has phone lines yet.”

“Telegram. Telegraph is the thing you use to - you know what? Never mind. Given the amount of times I’ve had to overnight you passports, wigs, and a go-bag so that you didn’t rot to death in a Filipino prison, I think I’ve earned the right to be a little selfish. Now turn off your light, if I go to sleep now I can get in a solid five hours before I have to call my cab.”

“Well I hope it’s got room in the trunk for the bags you’ll have under your eyes,” she spat, and turned off the light before she could see him flip both middle fingers in her general direction.

\-----

David knew before he even opened his eyes that it was late. Or rather, very very early. And his alarm hadn’t even gone off yet, which meant he was losing precious minutes of REM sleep for no apparent reason. 

He threw a hand on the bedside table and groped for his phone, finally prying his eyes open when he found it. He clicked the home button for the time (2:30 AM, God help him), and groaned. It was by the faint light of his home screen that he caught the movement at the end of his bed. He jolted up, now entirely awake, and scrambled to turn on the lamp.

There was a man in their room. A tall, very well dressed man, and he was standing at the foot of David’s bed. He held up a hand and flinched, as though he knew exactly what was about to happen.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” David screamed.

He leapt off the bed, taking the comforter with him and holding it up like a protective shield. He grabbed at anything within reach, which was mainly an assortment of Alexis’s hand creams and hair accessories, and launched them as hard as he could at the intruder, who batted them away with ease.

He was screaming loud enough to wake the dead, and yet Alexis hadn’t so much as twitched, and he heard no noise coming from his parents’ room.

“Alexis! Alexis wake the fuck up! Get your rape whistle, I already packed mine!”

The man rolled his eyes but held up his arms to show a complete lack of weapons in his hands. 

“Nobody is raping anybody! Will you please just put the curling iron down so I can explain?”

He gestured at the metal wand David had pulled off Alexis’s night stand and was now brandishing with two hands, not unlike a sword.

“You’re goddamn right nobody is raping anybody. Or robbing anybody, we literally have no money to give you!” He was trying and failing to keep the hysteria out of his voice. He leaned over, keeping his eyes trained on the stranger at the foot of his bed, and took one hand off the handle of the curling iron to jab Alexis in the shoulder. She didn’t stir, and it took David a double take to realize that she wasn’t even breathing. 

He dropped the curling iron completely and fell to his knees next to her bed. 

“Alexis!” He shook her violently. “Alexis, can you hear me? Oh my god, what did you do to her? Did you drug her? What did you even give her, she’s been immune GHB since she was nineteen!”

“Nothing! I didn’t give her anything, she’s not dead, she’s just frozen.” He said it like it was a perfectly normal explanation for her current state. 

“Well unfreeze her!”

“Not until you sit down and listen to me. Or I can freeze you too and then you’ll have no choice but to listen to me. It’s your call.”

David looked from Alexis to the stranger and finally at the motel room door as if calculating the odds of a successful escape. Even without Alexis’s dead weight (dear God in heaven no pun intended), he realized his chances of making it to the door were slim. It would require a degree of speed and coordination that had kept David out of almost every non-sexual physical activity offered to him throughout high school. 

“Fine,” he finally said, lowering himself on to the edge of his bed. “But I’m keeping the curling iron.”

The stranger’s shoulders dropped with relief. “You do that.”

The stranger sat down on the bed opposite David, nudging over Alexis’s frozen form to make room for himself. It was the first time David has really bothered to get a good look at his face, and a nagging sensation told him that he knew him from somewhere. The man opened his mouth to speak only to have David throw up a hand to silence him.

“Tom Ford.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are you Tom Ford? Because I know Tom Ford, and you’re either Tom Ford, or you’re his twin, or maybe you’ve had extensive plastic surgery to look just like him, but don’t look at me like you’ve never heard that name before.”

The man got a distant look in his eyes as though he were rummaging through some files in cabinet tucked deep within his brain before whatever he was looking for clicked into place.

“Ah, yes,” he finally spoke. “Tom Ford, American fashion designer and film director. Very recognizable to you, yes?”

“Duh,” David replied with all the superiority of your average teenage girl. “You’re telling me you’re not him?”

“Yes and no.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well technically it’s two answers.” He saw David’s eyes narrow into a glare and decided to humor him. “I’m not Tom Ford, but the fact that I look like him isn’t an accident. I picked a form that would be familiar to you. Not anyone that you were close to on a personal level, but still recognizable. I thought it might be a bit easier to get you to talk to me that way, as opposed to a total stranger.”

He said this all as though he were describing the thought process in picking out a trim level in a new car.

“So what do you normally look like?” David asked, genuine curiosity getting the better of him.

“Technically I don’t have a form. Not one that you’d be able to perceive anyway.”

“Then...who, I mean...no. Sorry. _What?_ ”

“There’s not really a word for it where I’m from. Lacking physical form is a real hurdle when it comes to developing a sense of self. I suppose the closest word to it that you would understand would be angel.”

The curling iron slipped from David's hand, hitting the floor with a dull thud. “Fuck off.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You are not an angel. Nope. Not buying it. That might’ve worked on me when I was young and naive, like that when that guy convinced me he was the Sultan of Brunei’s son when he was really just an ethnically ambiguous male escort from Jersey City, but I am too old and too wised up to buy some cheap Tom Ford look alike trying to tell me he’s a guardian angel.”

“I never said guardian,” the Tom Ford impostor pointed out.

“I do not care, go jump in a volcano please.”

“Yeah, um, I’m not doing that either. I’m here for you David.” 

Daid paled. “Here for me?” he squeaked.

The angel’s eyes went wide as he realized how his words had sounded. “Oh shit, no. Not like, _here for you_. You’re not dying.”

David put a hand over his heart and let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Oh thank God,” he muttered. “I didn’t want to be stuck haunting this place for all eternity.”

Tom, because that was already who David was starting to think of him as, smiled apologetically. “You won’t be. Fun fact: there’s actually no such thing as ghosts. Or heaven and hell, technically speaking. You know, pit of fire, big fluffy clouds, that sort of thing. I can’t even play the harp.”

“Really? Then wha - wait, what the fuck am I doing? Why am I talking to you like I’m taking any of this seriously? You are not an angel. You are a creepy motel night stalker who needs to get the hell out of my room before I call the cops.”

“And how do you explain Alexis?”

David glanced at his sister nervously. “She takes prescription sleep medication sometimes, and it can make it very hard to wake her.”

“I see. And the clocks?”

“Clocks?”

“Look at your phone. It’s been at least five minutes since you last checked it, what time does it say?”

David had to force himself to pick up his phone off the nightstand and wake the screen. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach before it even turned on. 

2:30 AM

He cursed under his breath and placed the phone back down. Tom looked at him expectantly. “Well? Did your phone take an Ambien too?”

David’s foot tapped nervously, and he stole another glance at Alexis.

“My parents?” he asked.

“Also frozen, but safe and sound in their bed. You can go check if you want.”

David couldn’t bring himself to stand up. That sinking feeling had turned into a thousand pound rock in his stomach, and it felt like he would never be able to get off the bed with it weighing him down.

“Okay. So...okay. You are…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“An angel,” Tom finished for him.

“And you’re here for me.”

“Correct.”

“Here for me _how_?”

Tom smiled, relieved that David was willing to play ball. Not literally, of course.

“I am here to offer you the opportunity to change the course of your life for the better. I am here to help you save your soul.”


	2. Julia Robert Lied to Me

“You’re here to save my soul?” 

“Yes.”

“Save it from what, exactly?”

“Well, from yourself really.”

David contemplated slapping the angel. It wouldn’t have made the situation feel any less absurd, but he strongly suspected it would make him feel better. Instead he pursed his lips and nodded. “Mmkay. Can you maybe explain to me exactly what it is that you do, but in a way that doesn’t make me feel personally attacked?”

Tom rubbed his hands together, contemplating where exactly to start. 

“It’s not like we have an official job description. Like I said, we don’t even really have a name.”

David stared at him, pointedly waiting for a better explanation.

“I guess, in the most basic terms: we try to guide people towards choices that will allow them to lead the best possible versions of their lives.” 

David crossed his legs and rested his chin on his palm, digesting Tom’s answer and finding that it had only spawned a dozen more questions.

“So...when you said you were here to ‘save my soul’...” he trailed off, not really sure which question he wanted to ask first.

Tom winced, unhappy with his own choice of words. “It was a turn of phrase. I thought it would be the easiest way to put it without having to really parse out the details, but I meant a very loose definition of the word ‘save’. Your soul itself isn’t in any imminent danger right this very second.”

David visibly relaxed but still looked puzzled. “Well if it’s not in any danger then why do you care about it?”

“I care because I have to. You were assigned to me. I am to watch your life, every moment of it, from the day you’re born until the day you die. My sole purpose is to observe your life and wait for an opportunity like this to present itself.”

“The opportunity to guide me towards a better life?”

“Ideally it’s to get you to guide yourself there but yes, essentially.”

“Except you said that my soul isn’t in any imminent danger. Direct quote. So why should I let you guide me anywhere? As of right now, I don't think I'd let you guide me to a bathroom.”

Tom shifted uneasily in his seat. “It’s complicated.”

“Well seeing as you just told me that heaven and hell aren’t real, why don’t you go ahead and parse out some of those details you mentioned before? Like, _all_ the parsing. Really, just parse the shit out of them."

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair,” Tom conceded, mainly to get David to stop saying the word 'parse'. “Though I do feel I should clarify, just because there are no pearly gates or cherubs singing hosannas doesn’t mean there isn’t an afterlife.”

“That’s super comforting, thanks, now if we could get back to the part about my soul?”

“Right, your...right,” Tom rubbed his forehead as though he were feeling the start of a headache coming on. David briefly wondered if it was possible for angels to get headaches, and if they did, what was the point of being one then?

”So there was an American writer who passed away a couple years ago. He was one of mine,” he added with evident pride. “And he stumbled, purely by accident, upon a genuine truth about the human condition. Of course he mainly wrote fantasy stories, so most people will never recognize the words for what they are, but that didn't make them any less right.”

“And what was this profound wisdom he supposedly graced us with?” David made no attempt to hide how little he cared about whatever fortune cookie wisdom this windbag had thought up.

“That sin is what happens when you treat people like things.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. The source of all sin, great and small, comes from the decision to treat people like things, and that includes yourself. Knowing that, can you see why I might have a concern or two about the general state of your soul?” He seemed to want David to think critically about himself, which was not something he had ever excelled at, historically speaking. So in true David Rose form, he fell back into defensiveness instead.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was supposed to be taking lessons in morality from Lord of the goddamn Rings. They didn’t teach us that one in Hebrew school.”

“You didn’t even read the books they did assign you in Hebrew school!”

David stood and began to pace the room, as though he were too outraged to sit still any longer. “Well that is besides the point.”

“You’re right, because the point is that you’ve spent the better part of your life treating the people around you like they’re disposable. You’ve never invested any emotional currency in a relationship because you assume they’re all going to end poorly - “

David stopped pacing and pointed a finger at Tom. “Tell that to the birthday clown.”

“And you don’t give people the time of day if they don’t hit what every arbitrary metric you set for them that deems them interesting enough to be part of your social circle.”

“I’m sorry that I think that life is too short to waste time on those who don’t enrich my general experience on this planet.”

“Oh so the birthday clown was enriching was he?”

David crossed his arms tightly. “I’m not saying there haven’t been some misses along the way, but I have curated a very specific and highly cultured core group of peers that most people would kill to even be in the same room with.”

“And how’s that working out for you now?”

David’s neck stiffened at the question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve probably reached out to every member of this ‘highly cultured’ friend group of yours? Sorry, not friends, _peers_. And I’m sure you’ve texted every single one of them in the past twenty four hours to help get you out of your...predicament.” He performed an exaggerated frown at the word. “How many of them responded?”

David clutched his phone possessively and gave what he hoped was an indifferent shrug. “They lead busy lives, it’s the nature of the kind of people they are. Half of them are in opposite time zones anyway.” 

“If by nature, you mean they’re just as self involved and stuck up as you are then yeah, sure. You can keep holding that phone for as long as you want, you’re never going to hear from them again.” 

“Ricardo answered me right away.”

“Ricardo is probably jerking off to the idea of you living in poverty as we speak. Which leads me to your second biggest problem: it’s not just that you don’t have respect for other people, it’s that you don’t even have it for yourself.”

David drew a hand up to his chest, scandalized. “I have plenty of self respect, thank you very much!”

“No David, you have a massive ego. They’re not actually the same thing.”

"Well I respect myself enough to get the hell out of this place, where the closest thing they've got to an art gallery is the bathroom fixture showroom we passed on the highway on our drive in."

The angel cocked an eyebrow. "You honestly believe that you respect yourself? And before you answer, remember that I know _literally_ everything about your life."

David crossed his arms and offered and even higher cocked brow in return. "No one holds themselves in higher regard than I do."

Tom shook his head. "Okay first off, how anyone could make that claim within spitting distance of your mother genuinely baffles me. And second, you once slept on a pullout futon after a one night stand because your hook-up's bed didn't have enough room for both you and his body pillow, and the body pillow won."

David's face screwed up in an expression of pure frustration as he attempted to form a rebuttal and found himself drawing a blank.

"Okay, point," he conceded. "But doesn't that make my decision to go back to New York a step in the right direction? In terms of like, good choices for myself?" 

"David, let's not pretend that any choice that involves Ricardo in your life can be described as 'a step in the right direction'." Tom made liberal use of air quotes as he spoke. David had never felt himself bristle quite so hard against the use of a hand gesture against him. 

"And," the angel continued, "under normal circumstances, there's really no such thing as a step in the right direction. There are just…choices. Lots and lots of choices."

"Two minutes ago you told me that you feared for the state of my soul, and now you’re telling me that there’s no such thing as a bad decision! I haven't been jerked around this hard since I -”

“-played seven minutes in heaven with Cheryl Goldstein at her fourteenth birthday party, yeah, I know,” Tom finished for him wearily. "Do you remember the movie Sliding Doors?" 

"The movie that stretched the bounds of credulity both with Gwenyth's English accent and its presentation of John Hannah as an object of sexual desire? Yes, I'm familiar."

"I meant the plot. The whole 'one small choice can dramatically affect the course of your entire life' thing?" 

"Yeah," David scoffed. "That's basically what I just said."

"Okay, the point I'm trying to make is that while the butterfly effect is very real, and that one choice does have the ability to completely change the trajectory of your life, the thing that Hollywood and, I guess, humanity in general seem to overestimate is its ability to change who you as a person."

David squinted at him and attempted to wrap his mind around what the angel was saying to him. After a moment he shook his head. "Yeah, no. Sorry. That doesn't make any sense."

"What part?" 

"The part where you propose that I could make one choice that ends with me sipping a martini on a rooftop bar in Berlin and another that ends with me in a decaying motel room in the middle of fucking Ontario, but either way I'm still me? I don't know what kind of bullshit 'be true to yourself' message you're peddling, but I ain't buying it."

The angel shrugged, unphased by David's objections. It helped that, as an angel, he knew it wasn't so much a theory as it was a general truth of the human condition that traced back to the days when the closest thing to an art gallery in all of existence was some finger paintings on a cave wall in France. 

"Doesn't matter what you're buying, it's true. People, for the most part, don't really change their nature based on their environment. They change their _behavior_ , sure. That’s just adaptation, Darwin figured that one out a long time ago. But when it comes to your essence or soul or whatever you want to call it, it’s a little nature plus a little nurture and there you have it: you are who you are.”

“So no one just gets to decide to change? Eat Pray Love was total bullshit then? Julia Roberts lied to me?”

“Oh sure, people have free will,” Tom said, ignoring the question of Julia Robert's involvement entirely. “They’re just more likely to use it to pick out candy at the movie theater than they are to radically alter their inner selves.”

David’s mind struggled to process what Tom was proposing. On the one hand, he thought that he should have found it reassuring. It would mean that no amount of time spent in Schitt’s Creek could undo the years of good taste in fashion and high expectations of customer service that had been instilled in him. But something about the whole idea just didn’t sit right with him. His brain was still stuck between images of the swanky rooftop bar in Berlin and the mildew scented room where he was now, and couldn’t accept being told that there was virtually no difference between them as far as the universe was concerned.

Tom must have read the struggle on David’s face. “Let me put it this way,” he offered. “You know how people like to wonder what Hitler would've been like if he hadn't been rejected from art school? Well I can tell you. Hitler. He still would've been Hitler. Maybe some different career choices, but all that hate, all that prejudice, all those weird mommy issues would've still been in there. A fucked up nougat center no matter what chocolate you coat it with. Different circumstances, same person."

David looked aghast. "Well that's fucking dark."

Again, the angel shrugged. 

"Could you maybe be a little less flippant when you're talking about Hitler of all people?" 

The angel had the good grace to look contrite. "Sorry, I suppose it was an extreme example. When you have the ability to look at the universe on a macro scale, your sense of decorum gets a little skewed."

"Clearly."

"But here's the thing, extreme examples aside, it actually proves my point: deep down, people rarely change who they are. 99% of the world's population falls right in the middle of the spectrum of human behavior. Not terrible, not great. Mildly selfish, with the occasional moment of grace. Just, you know, getting by."

David threw up his arms. "And that's a bad thing?" 

"Not at all. It's fine. It's the status quo. Good people tend to carry on being good, shitty people carry on being shitty. The law of averages at work. Which brings us to you."

"Me?"

"Yes David, you."

"You came down here to tell me how profoundly average I am?" he asked, as though Tom had pointed out that he had some spinach in his teeth, or that his favorite Neil Barrett jacket was now incredibly last season. 

"No, the exact opposite as a matter of fact."

David didn't actually find this response to be a particularly comforting alternative.

"You, David Rose, have more potential to change yourself for the better than almost any other human I've ever been assigned."

"I…" David seemed to be at a rare loss for words. "Thank you?" he finally managed to croak out. 

"Yeah, that wasn't a compliment. The only reason that you have such a massive potential for change is the fact that your baseline, where you are right now is, to be blunt, the fucking worst."

David looked stricken at the angel's declaration. He'd been through his fair share of breakups and relationship implosions throughout the course of his life, had thrown some harsh words and had them thrown back at him in kind, but when an angelic being declares you to be the worst all of ten seconds after name-dropping Hitler? That was something else entirely. 

Tom must have noticed how hard his words had landed and held up his hand placatingly. 

"Relatively,” he qualified his last statement. “Relatively the worst. Relative as in, on the spectrum of who you could be versus who you currently are. We’re basically starting on the bottom rung.”

“Well this does certainly feel like rock bottom,” David agreed.

“Why? Because you and your family are broke, disgraced, and destitute?”

David gestured at the dingy motel room they stood in as if he needed no further proof of the severity of his situation.

“I’m just going to point out that you’re wearing Gucci slippers that cost more than most people’s rent in this town, so your idea of destitute might need a little tweaking.”

“I cannot live like this,” David insisted. 

“Actually you can. Not without a substantial amount of bitching and moaning on your part, but if you turn down Ricardo’s offer and stay here, you and your family make a real go of it. You could be...no...you _would_ be happy here”

“Are you fucking kidding me. Happy? In Schitt’s Creek?”

“I know that’s hard for you to believe - “

“Oh look, you really are omniscient.”

“I know that’s hard for you to believe,” he repeated through gritted teeth, “But I can prove it to you. I can show you exactly who you could be if you stayed here.”

David shook his head. “Hard pass, thank you very much. I don’t need to see it, because I’m not going to do it.”

“And what if I didn’t give you a choice?” Tom asked.

“Well then that would be a pretty shitty way to treat someone who you just claimed had free will.”

Tom smirked. “Point.”

David looked pleased with himself. He walked back to his bed and gathered the fallen covers up off the floor. He looked back at Tom. “So what, do I just like, click my heels and close my eyes, and I wake up thinking this was all a dream?”

“David please,” Tom began, and the honest strain of desperation in his voice made David turn back to face him. “You have two paths ahead of you right now. Just let me show you the one you’re about to discount before you actually do it. I’m not going to take away your free will, or make you choose one over the other. Your choices will always be your own, but I need you to know what it is you’re actually choosing between.”

David nervously chewed at his lower lip, shocked to find that he was actually considering the angel’s offer. 

“Why me?” he finally asked. “I know you said that I have all this _potential_ ,” he said the word in the same tone he might say the word discount, or outlet mall. “But you also said that you’ve got a macro view of the universe, on all of humanity. You’re really telling me there’s not someone else who could use your guidance a little more than me? I know whatever version of my life you’re about to show me, no matter how great you claim it is, won’t involve me like...curing cancer or ending a war in the middle east.”

“No, it won’t,” Tom agreed. 

“So why me?”

Tom shrugged. “Because I didn’t get assigned a person who was destined to cure cancer or stop a war. I got you. And, well...because you asked.”

“I what now?”

“You asked. You looked up to the heavens and you prayed for a way out of your situation.”

“I did?”

“Yup,” he cocked his thumb the window. “Right out there on the front lawn of the motel, as soon as you pulled in.”

“This isn’t exactly what I meant!" He threw up his hands in frustration. “You couldn’t have just sent me a winning lottery ticket instead?”

“You want to know something funny about humans? They rarely ask for things that are good for them. People usually pray for something that will either a) objectively make their lives worse in ways they can’t possibly foresee or b) won’t have any effect on who they really are, in which case, why would we bother interfering at all? The majority of prayers go unanswered because answering them, on an individual level, would be pointless." 

"You’re saying it's pointless to cure someone's cancer, or help them find their lost dog or ferret or whatever?" 

"In terms of its ability to alter the nature of someone's soul? Yes." He saw David grimace. "You don't like that answer."

"Well neither would a lot of ferret owners."

"No, I suppose not." He didn't seem to take David’s disapproval personally. "We don't have very many opportunities to come down here and try to change someone's life. Free will generally precludes it. A lot of my kind can watch someone’s entire life and never once get the chance to intervene. You're only my third and I've been around for...well, awhile. The conditions have to be very exact: someone needs to be standing at the edge of a defining moment in their life, one that has the ability to dramatically alter the moral and ethical core of who they are, either for the better or worse. And most importantly, they have to ask for it."

“So you’re saying I am the one percent?” asked David.

“Not in the manner you’re used too, but yes. It’s perfect in a way; you’ve always loved exclusive things.”

David ran a tired hand down his face (never through his hair, even he didn’t touch the hair), and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Okay, fine,” David grumbled into his palm.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“No. But this has already been the weirdest day of my life, so why the fuck not?”

Tom patted him on the shoulder, and David flinched away from the contact. “That’s the spirit.” 

“So do I need to like, do anything now?” David asked, gesturing vaguely around the room, not exactly sure of what he had just agreed to.

“No,” replied Tom. “I’ve got this covered.” 

David opened his mouth, prepared to ask another question, but then Tom snapped his fingers and they were gone.


	3. Three Rooms Down and Eight Weeks in the Future

David collapsed to his knees on a familiar looking dingy carpet. He gasped for halting lungfuls of air and waited for the blurred borders at the edge of his vision to recede. It took him a moment to place the feeling he had experienced when Tom had snapped his fingers. It was that awful stress you feel on the inner ear when a plane begins to descend but your ears refuse to pop to balance out the pressure. Except instead of feeling it in his ears, he experienced throughout his entire body, all the way down to his blood vessels.

“You-” he coughed before attempting to take another breath. “You little shit!”

Tom stood above him, seemingly unaffected by whatever journey that snap had sent them on. He offered David a hand to lift him off the floor which David swatted away. “Sorry about that,” Tom offered, sounding more amused than apologetic. “You get used to it.”

David heaved himself up using the bed for leverage. “People only say that about things you don’t want to have to get used to, like LA traffic or chemo. No one ever tells you you’ll get used to bottle service or front row seats to Oscar de la Renta’s fall show.” 

“Two things you absolutely got used to in your life, but I see your point.”

David looked around the room they were in, confusion plain on his face. “Are we still in the motel? I almost threw up for the first time since 2013 and we didn’t even go anywhere?”

“Yes and no,” Tom responded in his annoyingly cryptic fashion. “We’re still in the motel, three rooms down from your own.”

“And we couldn’t have just walked here?” David asked, now under the distinct impression that the snap had just been to torture him.

“Not necessarily. We’re three rooms downs and eight weeks in the future.”

David’s jaw dropped, his cool annoyance falling briefly by the wayside. “Well...okay then. I guess that’s, um...that’s a bit more of a hike.” 

He finally took in just how different the room setup was from his own. Rather than two twins or the single queen his parents had, this room featured a large bed that David could best describe as ‘Reno brothel chic’, red satin sheets and all. And was that, oh good lord, was that actually a disco ball lighting the room?

“I didn’t know this place had a room they rented by the hour.”

“Not yet they don’t,” Tom replied, and David didn’t care enough to make him to explain just what the hell he meant by 'yet'. 

Before he could ask just why Tom had brought them to this den of iniquity, he heard the lock of the adjoining room door rattle open behind him. He turned to find himself staring at, well...himself. He was wearing his favorite Givenchy black and white striped sweater, which contrasted harshly against the trucker hat sitting askew atop his head. It had the word HIGH emblazoned in bold green letters above the bill.

“Oh my God." David jumped back. He turned to Tom and pointed at the drunk future version of himself that had just stumbled in. “Oh my GOD!” Whatever feelings he was experiencing in that moment struggled to articulate themselves beyond those three words. 

“Kind of trippy right?” Tom asked, like a drug dealer who’s a little too proud of his own wares.

“OH MY GOD!” He was hyperventilating now.

“Okay, okay, calm down. Not to sound like a broken record but really, I promise you do get used to this. It’s fine, they can’t see you or hear you. Just...I don’t know, just pretend you’re watching a movie starring yourself.”

“I’ve done that before actually,” David snapped, his breathing slowly coming back under control. “And this is _nothing_ like that.”

"I'm well aware of the three weeks you spent as David Lynch's houseboy, now will you shut up and focus?" 

David once again fought back the urge to give the angel a slap, mainly out of fear that Tom wasn’t above giving him one back, and finally noticed the smaller figure that had stumbled into the room behind Future David, a name he had already assigned to the lookalike. It was too hard to accept that they were really the same person spread out across two separate bodies, so his brain needed to treat the other version of him like a stranger with a mere passing resemblance instead. 

The second figure’s face was partially obscured by some horrendously over-sized glasses a la Paris Hilton circa 2004, so it took him a moment to recognize who it was. 

"Isn't that the girl from the front desk with the butch name? Stan or Stewart or something?" 

"Stevie," Tom corrected. "You know her name is Stevie."

"Same difference."

David watched as the two appeared to be suppressing giggles as they pressed their ears to hear the commotion next door. He saw that his future self was double fisting two beers and it finally dawned on him just how drunk they already were. Possibly cross-faded if the hat was to be believed. 

"No, it's not.” Tom said tightly. “You're just doing that thing where you pretend you don't remember someone's name because you think if you seem disinterested that it’ll make them want to impress you. Which doesn't really work by the way, and even if it did, _she can't hear us_." Ironically the last words came out half whisper, half shout. 

"Okay fine, Stevie then. Cool it with the truth bombs, Oprah."

Tom crossed his arms and leaned back against a dresser with a huff. “You remember your name because you liked her. You thought she was kind of a bitch, but in a way you could appreciate.”

David had actually liked her, and he now had zero intention of ever admitting that to Tom.

He was about to ask Tom just what the value was in watching himself get hammered with a front desk clerk when Future David leaned in and started to make out with said front desk clerk. 

"Oh for fuck's sake, really?" David sounded disgusted with himself. "You have standards!" he called out to his own back, where Stevie was currently working her hands under his sweater as he allowed the beer bottles to drop to the floor with a dull thud. 

"You really don't,” Tom remarked mildly.

"Shut it, Tom," hissed David. 

"Body pillow, _David_ ,” Tom shot back. 

They fell onto the bed, a tangle of increasingly naked limbs, and he decided that he really didn’t need to see anymore. He leaned his head backwards in disgust only to discover that ceiling was in fact a giant mirror and God help him he could see his own ass and he needed to get out of the room _immediately_.

He broke for the door and stepped through only to find himself walking directly back into the room he was trying to leave. He looked back over his shoulder and felt a weird lurch in his stomach akin to vertigo when he realized there was no inside or outside of the doorway, just the same Room Three in either direction. 

He groaned, fighting back a wave of nausea. “Will you cut that out?”

Tom shook his head. “Sorry David, I’m in the driver’s seat, you’re just along for the ride. And I wouldn’t be showing you this if it weren’t important.”

“I’ve watched myself have drunken sex before. As a matter of fact there’s a whole thumb drive somewhere in storage which come to think of it is now in possession of the federal government so that’s a nice little spritz of lemon juice in the paper cut.” He could hear a series of sloppy groans coming from behind him now, but he was determined to keep his back to the whole ordeal.

“Don’t be dense, this isn’t just about you having sex. It’s about who you’re having sex with.”

“You said you wanted to show me a path in life that would lead to me being better, happier person. You expect me to believe that path happens to go through Stevie’s legs?”

The remark earned him a sharp jab in the chest from Tom. “I don’t expect you to understand everything just yet, but this is where it starts.”

“Where what starts? The only thing I understand is that in about two months this place will have turned me towards both the bottle and sex with the help. Hardly a life changing revelation.” 

“No, the revelation here is that it took you two whole months to actually connect to another human being.” He saw David’s brow crease in confusion. “It took you two months to make a friend.”

David smirked. “Oh and this is how friends pass the time in small towns I take it?”

“Not typically. Though you two certainly give it a shot.”

David raised an expertly shaped brow. “And what does that mean?”

“That you attempt what the plot of a dozen rom-coms advises against: friends with benefits.”

David squeezed his eyes shut as though the very idea pained him. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Tom replied, making no attempt to mask his amusement.

“This place really does make me dumber. It leaches both common sense and my will to live.”

“Well needless to say it doesn’t really work out. But the silver lining of it all is that you actually manage to stay friends afterwards. Best friends, as a matter of fact.”

“Really? Do we make each other friendship bracelets and have sleepovers?” David asked mockingly.

“Best friend is your description, not mine.”

“You'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

Tom raised his hand threateningly, poised to snap.

David threw his hands up in surrender, as though Tom were threatening him with a gun instead of two fingers pressed together. “Whoa, hey, no need to be so hasty! I suppose…well, I’m not saying it’s impossible.”

Tom lowered his hand slowly but didn’t look particularly convinced by David's change of heart.

David tapped his foot and looked up at the ceiling to avoid having to make eye contact when he spoke.

“I will concede that maybe - given a lot of time and _very_ little contact with the outside world - I could possibly get Stockholm Syndromed into considering Stevie a friend.”

“Best friend,” Tom corrected.

“Whatever. But why should that matter to me now? He might care,” he gestured to his future self, who was still drunkenly thrusting away on the bed much to David’s chagrin, “but you expect me to agree to stay in Schitt’s Creek just to be friends with a girl that I barely know?”

Tom looked at him appraisingly. “You know, you actually make a good point.”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” David replied, mollified.

“No, you’re right. You should really get to know Stevie better for this to work.”

“Wait, what do you-”

***snap***

“We’re going to be selling this town so it’s going to be someone else’s problem soon.”

“But it’s such a great place to live.” Her voice drips with sarcasm and David looks at her appraisingly.

“...I think you’re funny.”

***snap***

“Your choices are beer or beer.”

“I assume a pint glass in out of the question?”

***snap***

“It’s one chromosome away from a crocheted blanket.”

***snap***

“What if I’m not a game person?’’

“Oh we’re far too similar for you not to be.”

***snap***

“I got these from a showroom in Paris.”

“I got these on a clearance rack at Target.”

***snap***

“You know where I got my hat bruh?”

“Where?”

“Assholes r’ Us.”

***snap***

“Well what about this?” She holds up a gaudy leopard print bodysuit and Future David flinches in disgust.

“Well that’s not an option. That...no.” 

“But I have my sister’s communion this weekend!”

***snap***

“They do give me a small weekly stipend for hanging out with you.” He can hear the laughter she’s holding back in her voice.

***snap***

“Umm, I am happy to help you in this time of need. That is, um, what friends say to each other, right?”

A small smile.

“Yes it is.”

***snap***

“She made her decisions. And you are going to make yours, and they are going to be different. And they are going to be great.”

Her eyes brim with tears.

“And if they’re not, I’ll be sure to scatter your ashes in a much nicer parking lot.”

***snap***

“I shouldn’t have eaten those eggs.”

“I can’t believe I’m trapped under a blanket with you knowing you ate those eggs.”

***snap***

“Okay good news! They have ‘Fantasy”, which means you get to play Old Dirty Bastard.”

***snap***

She stands there with a Cheshire cat grin.

“You’re like a tsetse fly!”

***snap***

“I know everything about you. About your history, your family, and I’m still here.” 

No hint of sarcasm.

“I think you’re my best friend.”

“You think?”

“Well, I can’t know for sure because I’m realizing now that I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”

“Okay, well, if we’re being honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had one either.”

“This would be a really sweet moment if what had just admitted to each other wasn’t so sad.”

***snap***

David crumpled down to the floor of his own motel room once more. The unrelenting quickness of their jumps through time left him weak and breathless. _Get used to it my ass_ , he thought. For a full minute the only noise he could hear was an intense ringing in his ear. He focused on taking deep breaths until the ringing began to fade and he finally allowed himself to open his eyes. 

Certain things he felt he wasn't sure were the results of them jumps at all, like the feeling of his heart slamming in his chest, or the wet streaks he quickly wiped from his cheeks. 

Tom was looking down at him smugly. At least David thought he looked smug, the expression seemed to be a semi-permanent feature for Tom Ford doppelganger. 

“Are fucking kidding me the snaps, Thanos? Was that really necessary?” he choke out.

“Depends,” Tom replied. “Do you still think you get tricked into being friends with Stevie? Oh no, sorry, ‘Stockholm Syndromed’?

David pulled himself into a chair, lips pursed.

“Well?” Tom prodded.

“No, okay?! No, I don’t think I get tricked into being Stevie’s friend. She actually seems, like, maybe someone worthy of my time.”

“Oh how generous of you,” the angel mocked. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” David insisted. “I meant that she would probably be someone I would want to spend time with even if I weren’t in this prairie land shanty town.”

“Really?” Tom sounded doubtful of his honesty, and David realized he couldn’t really blame him. Lying to get this whole adventure over with was undeniably within David’s wheelhouse. If Tom knew David half as well as he claimed, which was _very_ well, then he had every reason to doubt his sincerity.

What surprised David the most was that he actually was being sincere. What he had just witnessed was someone who happily took shit from him only to throw it back in his face. He had seen himself attempt, however awkwardly, to offer her comfort. He had watched her accept those attempts with grace.

Strangest of all was to see someone claim to know him, _really_ know him, but to say it without a hint of shame. He had heard those words before, and they were rarely followed by anything complimentary. It was normally something more to the tune of how selfish he was, how difficult he was to live with, how it just wasn’t working out anymore but hey, it’s been fun. No one said those words who had plans to stick around for much longer. 

And then there was Stevie, the acerbic motel clerk with an apparent fondness for weed and hooking up with equally acerbic guests in the midst of financial tailspins.

“Yes,” he said, meeting Tom’s gaze. “Really.”

His answer actually appeared to satisfy the angel. “Good,” he said. “Keep that in mind for what you’re about to see.”

David finally noticed that they weren’t alone in the room. He was watching himself pack up a wardrobe box. There were a number of suitcases scattered throughout the place in various states of being filled, and he felt a bubble of hope begin to grow inside him. He turned to Tom expectantly.

“A couple weeks after you and Stevie start up your little friends with benefits arrangement, your dad manages to find a buyer for the town,” Tom explained.

David jumped out of his chair and pumped a fist in victory, a motion he’d never done before and would probably never do again, but felt appropriate for the moment.

“Slow your roll there,” Tom warned him. “The sale falls through.”

  
David felt the bubble burst, and his once victorious fist fall limply to his side.

“But before you find out about that, you actually invite Stevie to come to New York with you.”

David spun back to look at Tom, baffled. “Um, w-why would I do that?”

“Because she’s your friend,” Tom replied as if it should be obvious. “And you realized how much you would miss her.”

“Look," he began, and quickly realized he didn't actually know how to justify what he was saying.

Friends lived together. What was so strange about that? Except David didn't. He hadn't had a roommate in years. And when he did, they certainly hadn't been friends. At most they were industry acquaintances who kept the same odd hours as him. The best David could say about any of them was that they never stole his food out of the fridge, but that was because none of them knew how to cook and ate out for almost every meal. Other than the occasional one night drop in from Alexis when she had a layover longer than six hours, he had grown to enjoy living alone. Or at least, he'd convinced himself he had.

In truth, he had just learned not to think about it. It was easy enough to do if the stream of one night stands was kept at a constant, or if he stayed out late at enough clubs that the only item in his Chelsea apartment that saw any use was his bed. The trick for him to enjoy living alone was to make it so he never had the time to notice that he did. 

"I-I know I said she’d be worth hanging out with regardless of location, but that’s a far cry from asking someone to move to another country with you. That’s...that’s huge. I have plenty of people in New York, I don’t need to import them.” He tried so sound cool, detached. It must have been convincing.

Tom shook his head in bewilderment at David’s callousness. “Do you hear yourself when you speak? Do you really take pride in not needing people?”

“It’s not pride, okay? It's not. I just find it really doubtful that I would want to take anything with me when I finally have the chance to get the hell out of here. Maybe I could visit Stevie on a kind of ironically boring road trip across the country some day, but it’s not like she would exactly fit in with my lifestyle in New York.”

“Funny,” Tom noted, “because she actually reaches almost the exact same conclusion on her own.” He pointed to the open doorway behind David where Stevie now stood.

She took a look at all the bags David has packed so far, her hands twisting together nervously.

“So, um, about New York,” she began. “Uh, it sounds amazing, but I can't do it, so… “

“Wha-what-what-? Why? What?” David stared at himself, taken aback by how shaken his future self appeared by Stevie's decision.

“Uh, I don't think we're on the same page with what going to New York means.”

“Okay.” Future David leaned against the box he had been packing. “What does it…does it mean something?” 

Stevie huffed and took a step forward. “I like you,” she admitted, not sounding overly thrilled by the fact. 

David saw himself immediately drop his gaze and purse his lips. He’d never been comfortable with stuff like this. He’d watched this kind of thing play out too many times before, except with him declaring his feelings only to have them promptly stomped on. Older David had learned from younger David’s mistakes. He learned that was what opening yourself up to rejection was: a mistake.

“I don't want to like you but I do, and so sharing a space with you as roommates isn't gonna work for me. So I'm gonna take a pass, but I'm sure you have a lot of friends who would love to live with you.” 

“Yeah, not as many as you'd think.” The words barely came out a whisper. David didn’t understand. 

“They didn’t care when you left,” Tom’s voice came from behind him. “Did you really think they’d care when you came back?”

He was talking about his friends in New York. His _peers_. He had definitely never shared a good-bye with any of them that looked half as painful as this. 

Future David folded his arms tightly in front of his chest. That was how you blocked a killing blow after all. “So...okay. Well, thank you for being honest and, um, I wish I could fix this situation. You've been a great friend.” David cringes at his future self’s attempt to be diplomatic. If his brief trip through the highlight reel of their friendship had shown him anything, it was that Stevie deserved better than a polite but cool let down. “You've been my o-only friend, so great, nevertheless. Um you've made my life here survivable.” David and Stevie both cringe at the word.

“Survivable,” she repeated, her voice thick. She actually smiled then, and even with tears filling her eyes David was struck by how beautiful she looked. This was quickly followed by a pang of self loathing for the fact that it took him until this moment to really notice it. “Thank you. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“So now I'm gonna go back to New York...by myself and um, and you can just stay here then.” 

His voice was more distant now; the wall was back up.

“Yeah, I think that's how it has to be.” She turned and marched out of the room before Future David could see her cry, leaving him standing there alone, studying the four silver rings on his right hand.


	4. A Soupçon of Humiliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter to be followed by a much longer one, which will be a gift for anyone who's hung in there wondering when the hell we're going to see Patrick.

Tom rose from the table and gestured for the door. “Nothing more to see here.”

David knew he was right. With a small sniffle and a quick swipe under his eye, Future David had steeled himself once more and returned to packing his things, though with considerably less enthusiasm than before.

Tom led them out to the motel parking lot. David stared at the building solemnly, before huffing out a short breath and shaking his head.

“Something on your mind?” Tom asked.

“I guess I just don’t understand what the point of all that was.”

“All of what, exactly?”

“This is supposed to be some great transformative friendship right? So why did I have to watch us reject one another? Where was the value in any of that?”

Tom looked stunned. “Value,” he repeated dully. “You didn’t see anything of value in there?”

“I saw abandonment with a _soupçon_ of humiliation, if that’s what you mean.”

“David, almost everything I showed you before, all those moments that were meant to show just how important you two are to each other? Almost all of them take place _after_ Stevie turns down your offer to go to New York.”

David’s face went slack. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that what he had seen had taken place outside of the three months between when his family had shown up at the motel and when his father had found a buyer. “So, wait. That wasn’t...I mean, I didn’t - “

“You didn’t just witness the end of your friendship, no.”

“Then, uh, w-why did I need to see that then? I still don’t see the point.”

Tom raked a hand through his hair. “The point is that your relationship with Stevie was salvageable because it was actually worth being salvaged. I’ve watched you go from relationship to relationship, always wondering why it didn’t work out. And I’m talking about all your relationships here: your friendships, your fuck buddies, your one night stands that you really wish could last more than just one night but you never have the balls to reach out to them again. Almost none of them were worth the work it takes to maintain.”

David flung his hands in the air. “No good relationship comes easy!”

Tom barked out a laugh devoid of any humor. “Just because they don’t come easy doesn’t mean they have to be so damn hard.”

David momentarily forgot just how much he had paid for his Hanro lounge pants and allowed himself to sit down on the pavement. Tom looked down at him with a not insubstantial amount of pity, and joined him on the ground.

“So you’re telling me I’ve made it some thirty odd years on this planet without having found a single worthwhile relationship?”

“Depends on whether or not you consider your relationship with your parents to be worthwhile, or with Alexis.”

“Ugh, that’s different and you know it.”

“Different, but not any less important. I imagine you’re feeling pretty damn alone right now?”

David bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from answering.

“Right, well, think how much worse you would feel if you didn’t have your family either.”

He thought of the tug he had felt in his chest when Alexis had begged him to take her back to New York with him. He hadn’t wanted to put a name to it at the time, but he knew it had been guilt. He had taken care of Alexis almost her entire life, more than Moira or Johnny ever had, and the decision to take Ricardo up on his offer was the first time he could ever recall choosing to say no to her when it really mattered. 

Taking care of her had never been a choice he’d had to make. It was just what he did. He realized Tom was right. It might not have been easy, but it wasn’t hard either.

“Okay,” he admitted ruefully. “You may have a small point.”

“Just a small one?” Tom teased.

“Don’t push it.”

Tom mimed waving a small white flag. “Sorry. I just need to know that you understand why I showed you your friendship with Stevie. The good parts and the - ”

“Humiliating?” David offered.

“I was going to say humbling,” Tom countered. “But whatever you prefer. You do understand, don’t you?”

David eyes focused on the motel. He could still make himself out through the open door of his room, arranging moving boxes and luggage into neat piles. He glanced over to the front door of the lobby. He couldn’t see Stevie but he knew she was in there. He hoped she wasn’t crying anymore. He felt the strangest urge to go in there, to tell her that it was all going to work out, that none of this was worth crying over. That _he_ wasn’t worth crying over.

He blinked hard, yanking himself out of his own thoughts. Where had that come from? He couldn’t go talk to her even if he wanted to; the only David she knew was loading up a truck and getting the hell out of dodge. And how could he promise that anything was going to work out? Doing so would mean choosing to stay in Schitt’s Creek in order to make everything he had witnessed come true. As nice as it was to see what an actual friendship could look like for him, he was nowhere near ready to throw in the towel and abandon his plans for New York.

He could feel Tom’s eyes on him, and remembered that he was supposed to be giving him an answer. “Yes,” he admitted. “I get it.”

Tom looked pleased, if not a little skeptical. “Good,” he said. “I needed to be sure of that before I could show you what comes next.”

“And what’s that?”

Tom just smiled and snapped.


	5. A Slice of Sponge Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now for the main reason I started writing this in the first place: Patrick.

David bounced back quicker than he had from the previous snaps, but he still had to brace his hands on his knees and take a few deep breaths before he felt confident enough to straighten up and open his eyes.

They were standing outside a nondescript building in town. It almost looked like it could be someone’s home if it weren’t for the sandwich board on the front walkway offering a hodgepodge of professional services.

Tom was staring down the street over David’s shoulder. He rubbed his hands together quickly and if David didn’t know him better, not that he really knew him at all, he’d say that Tom was actually nervous. 

David snapped his fingers in front of Tom’s face to get his attention. “Hey, excuse me, hi. Um, David Rose here, you’re in the middle of dragging me through an existential crisis?”

Tom smacked David’s fingers down like he was swatting a rather persistent fly out of his face. 

“I’m aware.” He glanced once more over his shoulder and then back to David. “Sorry, I brought us a little closer to the meeting than I meant to. It’s fine, I just need to get you caught up.”

“Is this meeting to book my dream vacation or have my portrait taken?” he asked, pointing to the sign. “This Ray Butani guy is a real jack of all trades.”

Tom glanced at the sign and shook his head. “This is Ray’s house, but you’re not here to meet him.”

“Okay then, who am I here to meet?”

“Cliff notes version?”

David waved a hand to hurry him up. “Fine, whatever.”

“You’ve lived in Schitt’s Creek for about a year now and you recently came into a bit of money working at a clothing store in Elmdale.”

At this, David perked up. “Really? Like a boutique? What happened? Did I help a floundering but promising young designer learn how to market themselves in a town where ninety percent of the population buys their clothing at the same store they buy their groceries?”

“Actually you drove a previously flourishing small business into the ground through a series of expensive and poorly received design and marketing choices.”

He visibly deflated. “Oh.”

“But, you did help the owner sue a competing business for a frankly absurd amount of money, and she gave you a cut as her way of saying thanks.”

David scrunched up his face like he had just caught a waft of something unpleasant.

“Well that’s - ”

“Not ideal,” Tom finished for him. “I know. It wasn’t a ton of money, but it was enough to allow you to lease the building that used to hold the town general store before it folded.”

“Lease?”

“Yup.”

“Why would I lease a building?”

“For the business you’re going to start.” Tom clapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations.”

David gaped at him. "I start a business?" 

"You do."

"I start a business." He wasn’t asking a question anymore so much as he was taking the phrase out for a spin, seeing how it felt on his tongue. “All on my own.”

Tom hesitated. "Not exactly, no. You get some help. But hey, credit where credit’s due, the idea is all yours."

David barely heard him, still bouncing between a surprisingly strong surge of pride at the idea that he could create his own business from the ground up, start up money and all, and an uneasiness that he would choose to open that business in Schitt's Creek. To do something like that felt - well... _permanent_. Was one year really all it would take to get him to throw in the towel on his dream of making it back to New York and settle for a town where your realtor and your wedding photographer are the same person? 

"Well who helps? Please don't say Alexis. I once saw her try to withdraw money from a Coinstar machine because she assumed it was an ATM that paid out only in coins. Wait, hold on, what even is my busi - ?" 

Tom raised a hand to shut him up. "Local goods sold under your own store’s brand. Commission split between you and the vendors."

David was mildly shocked at what a good idea that was. Not shocked that he could come up with a good idea to begin with, but that he could figure out a way to make it work in a town like this. 

"And as for who helps you, that’s why we're here." He pointed at Ray's house/office/photo studio. 

"Not for headshots then?" 

"Don't be cute," Tom snapped, stealing another glance over David's shoulder. "Hurry up and get in." 

David turned around to see what Tom was staring at only to find it was actually him. Future David. Potentially but Probably Not Future David, if he cared more about being specific than concise. 

Future David was coming up the walkway, clad in a Rick Owens sweater and matching lace ups. David knew why: coordinating outfits gave him confidence.

Future David walked by them, close enough that David took a sidestep to avoid him even though he knew it didn't make any difference, and went through Ray’s front door. Tom motioned for him to follow suit.

They entered just as Ray was handing David off to a short guy with a crew cut and an apparent penchant for monochrome outfits.

“Who’s that?” David asked, gesturing to the exceedingly clean cut man.

“Patrick,” the man answered as though he could actually hear him. He was really just introducing himself to Future David.

“Patrick,” David repeated aloud. He narrowed his eyes and gave the man a once over like a trained killer scanning for points of weakness. “He’s the one who’s going to help me with my business? The human equivalent of a slice of sponge cake?”

Tom huffed and and smacked David with the back of his hand. 

“Unnecessary,” David hissed, but took the message and focused his attention back on his future self and Mr. Wonder Bread.

Patrick was attempting to review the incorporation paperwork with Future David and it was going, in a word, badly. For starters, he didn’t have a name for his business yet. Patrick’s attempt to solicit an address was equally fruitless, and that’s when the downhill speed went from bunny slope to black diamond.

“Battin’ a thousand here David,” Patrick quipped. David didn’t know what that meant, and apparently neither did Future David, but he could tell he was being teased. 

“Hey, here’s an easy one: a brief description of the business.” He looked up at Future David expectantly. _Brown eyes_ , David noticed. H _ow basic can you get?_ _He’s like a generic white man prototype. Shouldn’t he be off milking a cow, or rushing a fraternity?_

“Um well, it's-um, it's a general store, but it's also a very specific store.”

David cringed at the answer. It sounded terrible to him and he was basically the one saying it.

Patrick appeared to be thinking the same thing, but instead replied with a rather tactful, “Huh.”

“And it's also not just a store,” Future David continued. “It's like a place where people can come and get coffee, um, or drinks, but it's not a coffee shop, nor is it a bar.

“Okay,” Patrick replied, eyes narrowed as though he were trying hard to decipher a puzzle. “So we're pretty clear on what it's not.”

“Yeah, it's an environment,” Future David gestured vaguely with his hands while David groaned into his own. “And yes, we will be selling things, but it's more like a branded immersive experience.”

Patrick was covering his mouth with one hand, presumably to hold back the laughter Future David’s explanation was inspiring in him. As much of a trainwreck as this pitch was, David immediately felt his hackles go up at the gesture. Some guy with an MBA from the University of Manitoba did not have the right to smirk at David like that.

“Right, I love the buzzwords, David, but I do need to put something down here,” he said, gesturing at the still-blank page in front of him. 

“Okay, you couldn't use anything I just said?”

David cupped a hand under his chin, unable to take his eyes off the disaster this meeting had become. “Oh for the love of God,” he whispered.

Patrick seemed to consider Future David's reply for a moment before clicking his pen closed and offering him the blank application forms instead. “Tell you what - why don't you take these home with you, and just fill them out when you have a clearer idea of what you want to do with your business.”

Future David took the forms, frowning. “Okay, um...I do have a clear idea.”

“Oh!" His face lit up. "You've settled on a name, then?”

David and Future David both pursed their lips and narrowed their eyes at Patrick at the same time.

David spun to face Tom. “Okay, that's enough, why the hell am I letting this youth pastor talk to me like this?” 

Tom put a finger to his lips and shushed him silently.

“You're either very impatient, or extremely sure of yourself,” Future David replied tartly.

David looked to Patrick, expecting a biting response in return and was instead surprised to see him duck his head down quickly only to look back up with genuine smile. Apparently he’d found David’s withering reply a lot more amusing than withering. 

He made a yet another sports reference that neither he nor Future David understood, and - _shit_. There was that goddamn smile again, this time at David’s apparent ignorance of all things athletic. 

David decided he really didn’t care for that smile. That smile was smug in a way it hadn’t earned the right to be, and the fact that it transformed the face it rested on from entirely generic and forgettable to mildly handsome just made pissed him off all the more. 

“It was nice to meet you David,” Patrick called as Future David made his exit. 

Future David muttered a quite _yeah_ that implied it had been anything but.

He stared at his own back as it walked out Ray’s front door and turned back to find Tom staring at him intently.  
  


“What?’

“Nothing,” Tom replied innocently. “What did you think?”

David planted a hand on his hip, annoyed Tom’s desire to be as unspecific as possible. “About what?”

“About what just happened."

“You mean when I brought forth an idea for a groundbreaking retail experience to this podunk little town only to have it shot down but a guy who shops at The Gap?”

Tom performed a small golf clap. “Impressive editorializing there David, kudos. That’s really your takeaway from this whole thing?”

“Not even The Gap. Old Navy,” David grumbled, ignoring Tom’s question. 

“You think he shot down your idea.”

“I’m sorry, were we not watching the same conversation?”

Tom closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he said. “I should have expected this.”

“Expected what?” David started to ask, but Tom had already snapped his fingers.

\-----

Tom was right, David was getting used to the jumps. This time it only took about ten seconds for the dizziness and ringing in his ears to subside. “Some warning,” he coughed, “would be nice.”

Tom shushed him and pointed at the two people conversing in front of them. David realized Tom had snapped them back to the motel. Stevie was in the middle of pulling a dirty sheet off one of the guest beds while Future David stood there awkwardly holding up two hands encased in hideous blue cleaning gloves.

“Oh God, did Stevie kill someone? Am I helping her clean up the crime scene? Is this a Dexter thing?”

Tom shot him an annoyed glare. “Of course not. She’s cleaning the rooms. You know, _her job_.”

“Then why am I here?”

“You’re helping.”

“I’m _what_?”

“I mean, technically you’d have to be doing something useful for it to be considered helping, but you do occasionally hand her a clean set of sheets.”

“Yeah, still stuck on the ‘why am I here’ question.”

“Because you wanted to talk to her, but she had to do her rounds. You agreed to help so you could spend time with her.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tom replied, pointing to Future David. “He would.” 

David fought the urge to roll his eyes for the hundredth time that day. If this counted as a day. Thinking about it too hard seemed to result in an immediate headache, so he backed off the topic entirely. What he was certain of was that he was getting pretty tired of being compared to himself and consistently coming up short.

Tom snapped his fingers in front of David’s space, drawing him out of his pout. He pointed at Stevie and Future David, his meaning clear. **_Pay attention_**.

“Um, so I went to incorporate earlier today, and some guy basically told me that my business was a failure,” Future David said. 

Stevie immediately looked outraged on his behalf, a gesture which David appreciated.

“Some guy who's working at Ray's told you your business was a failure?”

“Basically, yeah,” Future David replied, his nose crinkling at a mystery scent coming off the basket of used bedding. 

“Well, what did he say?”

“He told me to come back to him once I had a clearer idea of what my business was.” Future David repeated the phrase as though Patrick had told him to come back when pigs flew and Meryl Streep phoned in a performance for once.

“And then he told you it was a failure?” 

“Well no, not like...not exactly.” The outrage had begun to leak out of Future David’s voice.

Stevie tucked the clean sheets tightly into the corners of the bed and came around to finish the other side. “I'm sorry, I'm just trying to figure out when he called your business a failure.” 

“Okay, maybe he didn't call my business a failure, but it was insinuated.”

She paused her work to face him. “So you know that _I_ think your business is a good idea, and you know that I mean that, because I'm incapable of faking sincerity. I'm also just incapable of sincerity in general.”

Future David stared upward, and David knew he replaying the meeting with Patrick in his head.“Okay, you know what, I'm going through it right now, and I actually think that I might've been the one that insinuated that my business was a failure.”

“Wait, you blew something out of proportion?” The sarcasm was not lost on David. Future David must have been fairly used to it as he ignored it completely.

“No, what if he's right? I am sitting on a big, empty space, and I couldn't even tell him what I wanted to do with it! ” David winced at the panic in his own voice. Self doubt was not a cute look on him. 

“You're freaking out,” Stevie observed. “Because you know what you want to do with your business, you have walked me through it one too many times. So he was probably just trying to help.”

“No, I mean, he was _very_ snippy.” He jabbed out his index fingers sharply to emphasize the level of snippinness he’d endured. Stevie sympathized the only way she seemed to know how: by offering David a mystery joint left behind by one of the guests.

“So,” Tom’s voice came from behind David, “did any of this maybe make you re-evaluate your assessment about that meeting?”

David bit his cheek, reluctant to give the angel the satisfaction of an affirmative answer. “Maybe,” he finally admitted. “But that guy really was _far_ snippier than the situation called for. Like where does he get off?”

“Patrick,” Tom offered.

“Sure.”

Tom smiled at David’s dismissiveness for once, which David actually found more annoying than when he criticized it.

“So what did you think of Patrick?”

“What did I think? Shitty attitude, shitty taste in clothes - “

“Great smile though huh?” Tom interjected.

David, thrown off his rhythm, didn’t immediately deny the suggestion. “Sure, I-I- mean,” he stammered. “You can tell his parents invested in some good orthodontic work there, so bully for them, I guess.”

“Disarming even.”

“Sure, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“And what sort of thing is that?”

“Clean cut straight boy with a subscription to at least one sports network, if not a multi-channel package, and three different braided belts that he rotates out depending on the fanciness of the steak house he takes his dates to as a preamble to the disappointing missionary position sex they’ll be having before the end of the night.”

Tom looked both amused and horrified by David’s assessment.

“With the lights off,” he added. “Probably.”

"You got all that from a four minute meeting with him?" 

David smiled smugly. "You're not the only one with an acute understanding of people."

"I'm sorry, did you just compare the entirely baseless assumptions that you make about people based on their fashion choices, vehicles, and occasionally even their posture to the millennia's worth of insight that I, _an angel_ , have into the human condition?" 

"Yup." David's lips popped on the last letter. Then he replayed the angel's accusation in his head. "That was mildly offensive, wasn’t it?" 

Tom sighed, his cheeks puffing out with the slow expulsion of air. "Nope. You just really are your mother’s son." 


	6. Ciao!

David took a seat on the freshly made bed. He heard the sound of the bathroom fan coming to life, followed by a short burst of coughs and Stevie’s laugh. He suppressed a sigh of envy.

“I assume we’ve got somewhere else to be?”

Tom grabbed a chair from the kitchenette and swung it around to sit facing its back, like an out of touch teacher trying and failing to seem hip to a group of teenage students.

“We have a few minutes while Cheech and Chong hotbox the bathroom.”

“Very clever,” David scoffed.

“I try.” He drummed his fingers on the back of the chair, producing nothing that sounded even vaguely like a beat. “So I have a bit of a dilemma before me.”

“Um, is that a normal thing for an angel to have?”

“Not typically,” Tom admitted. “But I think we’ve established that very little about this situation is normal, so you can maybe cut me a little slack here.”

David gaped at him. “Cut _you_ some slack? You’ve been yanking me around time and space like an heiress with a toy poodle and I need to cut you slack? That’s rich.”

“You don’t even know what the dilemma is.”

“Nor do I care, and yet we’re still talking about it.”

“Well you probably should care, seeing as it involves multiple ways in which I can choose to embarrass you. Or not. Haven’t quite decided yet.”

David pinched his lips together and slowly crossed one leg over the other. He folded his hands in his lap and attempted a smile, the picture of polite contrition. 

“Let me begin by saying that I - ”

Tom raised a hand to stop him. “Yeah I’m going to go ahead and interrupt what I’m sure would have been an eloquent and utterly insincere apology. I’ve made my decision.”

David flinched and squeezed his eyes shut, prepared for a snap that didn’t come. After a few beats of silence and no sudden sensation of his body being squeezed through a pinhole, he risked peeking one eye open. 

Tom was staring at him like he was an absolute fool, an assessment David would have been hard pressed to argue against.

“You, uh...you decided to go the no embarrassment route?” David asked hopefully.

Tom smiled in a way that David found deeply unsettling. “Nope. I’m going to give you - “ he paused, leaning his head side to side as he weighed his options, “ - fifty percent.” 

“And w-what does fifty percent look like exactly?”

“It doesn’t look like anything. It sounds like this.” He clapped his hands together twice, flourishing them like a flamenco dancer. After a long moment of silence David was prepared to ask Tom if maybe his claps didn’t work quite as well as his snaps when the booming sound of his own voice jolted him off the bed and landed him ass first on the ground.

**_Hi David, it’s Patrick!_ **

David looked madly around the room for the source of the voice, of _his_ voice, but it didn’t seem to come from any direction so much as filled the whole room all at once. He tried to clap his hands over his ears to dull the volume only to discover that the words rang out just as clearly in his own mind.

**_I um-was just calling to run my business plan uh, by you in a little more detail._ **

**_So feel free to give me a call back, and I will be happy to walk you through it._ **

**_Okay, ciao!_ **

Just like that, the room was plunged back into silence, save for a hollow ringing noise in David’s left ear.

He stared at Tom, aghast. “What the actual fuck was that?”

“That was you in about an hour’s time, attempting to call Patrick about your business idea,” he replied, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “Whilst stoned,” he added with a grin.

David held up a single finger. “Okay well one, if you wanted to be able to pull off the word ‘whilst’, you shouldn’t have picked a body with an American accent.” He held up a second finger. “And two…”

He paused to take a deep breath before forcing out his next words. “And two...did I hear me um, myself, say the words ‘Hi David, it’s Patrick’?”

“Mmhmm,” Tom hummed.

“Fantastic!” he exclaimed with horribly false cheer. “Because that’s what I thought I said, and I uh...I just wanted to make sure.” 

He dragged himself off the ground and back onto the bed. He was replaying the voicemail over in his head and felt an aftershock of embarrassment ripple through his stomach. 

Ciao.

_Ciao._

He had ended a phone call to the Brady Bunch understudy who happened to hold the fate of his business in the palms of his little Brady hands with the word _ciao_.

Well, he hadn’t. The guy in the bathroom playing Puff, Puff, Pass with Stevie had, but the part of his brain in charge of dolling out shame didn't seem to care about the distinction.

He attempted to collect himself, smoothing a finger over his brows.

“So that was fifty percent?” he asked Tom.

“No,” Tom replied, raising his hands once more. “This is.” He clapped before David could say another word.

**_Hi Patrick, yeah, I think, I-I think I called you David._ **

David buried his face in his hands.

**_Which that's not - that's not your name!_ **

“Oh fuck me sideways,” he grumbled into his palms.

**_You can just delete that text, the - the voicemail that I left you._ **

“Alright, I think that should do it. Unless you want to hear the next seven voicemails as well?” It was Tom’s voice he heard this time instead of his own. He dropped his hands and glared at the angel.

“Was all that really necessary?” he spat.

“No,” Tom admitted. “But neither was calling me Thanos.”

“You know, for a celestial being you have _very_ thin skin.”

“Pots and kettles, David,” Tom replied evenly, pressing his thumb and middle finger together. “Pots and kettles.”

\-----

They were standing in the general store, except it wasn’t really the general store anymore. The building that David had only briefly glimpsed before when his family arrived in town had been a rundown old building housing a store devoid of customers and overflowing with an inventory of goods ranging from ‘cheap’ to 'cheap and useless.’

It was almost unrecognizable now. The inside had been given a fresh coat of paint, the font counter had been refinished, and the floor was now clear of the unattractive metal shelving units that used to reside there. In their place was a series of low wooden tables, solid oak from the look of it, each one covered with boxes in various stages of being unpacked.

Though the floor plan was still clearly a work in progress, David already saw a few small details that let him know this was _his_ store. Four small black bird statues rested in cubby holes on the far wall that used to adorn a bookshelf in David’s first apartment in SoHo. 

He picked up a small blue jar off the table closest to him, Juniper Berry Moisturizing Balm according to the label, and noticed the small ‘ ** _RA_** ’ that sat above the product name, adorned on either side by stencil drawing of a small rose. 

He held it out to Tom, who plucked it from his hand. “RA?” he asked.

Tom smiled. “Rose Apothecary,” he said, handing it back.

David stared at the jar for another moment before placing it back down on the table. “Huh.”

“What?” Tom asked.

“Nothing,” David replied quietly, then cleared his throat. “It’s uh, it’s a good name.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.” Tom leaned gently against the table, folding his arms in front of him. “Patrick thought it sounded pretentious.” 

“Ugh,” David whined, remembering what they’d been doing before Tom had brought them here. “Did you bring me here for further humiliation? Decided fifty percent wasn’t good enough for you?”

“Oh relax, I’m not a sadist. If I were, I would have shown you Patrick telling you to your face all about just how much he enjoyed listening to the rest of your voicemails. Even Ray got in on the fun.”

David planted a hand on his hip and blew out an angry puff of air. “Yeah, you’re a real hero.”

“Wouldn’t have been so bad,” Tom said, sound quite sure of himself. “Because in that same conversation, Patrick explains that your stoned ramblings went on just long enough for him to piece together everything he needed to fill out your application. That’s your business license over there on the wall.”

David turned to where he was pointing, and almost immediately forgot what he was supposed to be looking for. His attention was drawn instead to the bodies of Patrick and Future David, standing frozen in front of the counter. Future David was holding what appeared to be a pile of point-of sale equipment in his arms, and he had an odd expression on his face, a mixture of confusion and pleasant surprise. 

Patrick on the other hand was casually leaning with one hand against the counter, the other tucked into his front pocket. He looked surprisingly serious, though David thought that maybe this was how he always looked, at least when he wasn't making fun of him. He was also starting to wonder if Patrick’s closet was filled with the same shirt in eight different shades of blue.

They looked like characters in a movie that someone had left on pause.

Behind them both, he finally noticed, was a framed business license that read ‘ ** _Rose Apothecary_** ’ in neat black print.

David looked dumbfounded. “He did that?”

“He did indeed,” Tom assured him. “As a matter of fact, he found your business plan pretty impressive. Opinions on the name notwithstanding,” he added.

“He did?” David repeated himself, not entirely convinced that Tom wasn’t still screwing with him.

“Cross my heart. That’s actually why we’re here.”

David pointed at the where the two stood fixed in time. “W-what is this? What’s happening?”

“Oh that,” Tom said mildly. “They’re fine. I just brought us here _en media res,_ as the screenwriters put it. I paused them like that so we could have a minute to talk.”

"You told me you couldn't do that!" 

"No, I said I _wouldn't_. Not that I couldn't."

David seemed to have already forgotten the minor outrage he felt as he stared at his future self, standing there like a hyper realistic wax statue. “I thought watching another version of myself walking and talking was weird. But _this_...somehow this is weirder.”

“Want me to tell you you’ll get used to it?” Tom asked with a grin.

“I do not.”

“How about I press play instead?”

David bit back a few choice words about what he’d really like Tom to do with his new found level of cheek. “Please do,” he replied.

Tom waved a rather nonchalant hand at the frozen pair, and he and David watched as they sprang to life.

“You know I've been thinking about all this,” Patrick said, gesturing the sales floor, “and these products that Alexis was showing me yesterday were actually really impressive, I mean the whole model is actually very sustainable.”

“Thank you,” Future David replied, looking pleasantly awed by the compliment.

“But I think you're gonna need more start-up money.” 

David could see the wind go out of his own sails immediately. “Oh…more start-up money. Um, and where do you think I'll get that money?” David didn’t think he meant it quite as sarcastically as it sounded, but he also knew it wasn’t like he could dip into the family coffers for help either.

“Well, when you're supporting local business, there are grants that you can apply for. And I would be happy to assist you with those applications.”

“Well,” Future David began, his brows shooting up in surprise. “That is very, um, very generous.”

“Well, I wouldn't be doing it for free.”

David wanted to reach over and close his own mouth, which was hanging open in a fairly undignified manner. 

“See, if these grants came through, you'd have the money to start paying me.”

“Okay…umm.” Future David shook his head as though that would make the way this conversation had turned any less strange to him. David knew he was trying to quickly process the idea of having a business partner. It was not something he’d ever had to do. His galleries had been a solitary job for him, one in which gave him complete creative control and spared him ever having to put a decision up for a vote. 

“I really think you have something here, David. You just...you just need some help.” He looked around the store again, and immediately re-evaluated his own position. ”You need a lot of help.”

“Okay!” That last remarked had hit too close to criticism. “Um, well…uh,” Future David squeezed his eyes shut and appeared to run quick calculations in his head, weighing the idea of shared responsibility against the extra money he knew he needed to run the store at all. He must have decided it was a fair trade because he finally answered, “Then yes, I am open to entertaining your investment offer.”

“Great. And in the interest of us potentially working together I did want to come clean about something.” His voice dipped lower, his tone more serious. David felt his stomach tighten ever so slightly, and he leaned in to get a closer look at Patrick’s face.

“Okay?” Future David looked even more confused than he’d been by Patrick's initial offer.

“I, um…” he paused, letting out a quiet sigh. He didn’t seem to want to look Future David in the eye. “I actually picked out that frame.” He was staring at the business license hanging on the wall, which now that David could see more clearly, was housed in a rather hideous corporate looking frame.

He felt the knot loosen in his stomach and shook his head at the anticipation he’d felt. What had he actually expected Patrick to say?

“I see.” Future David looked at the frame and smirked. “So thank you for making it very clear that I will be making the creative decisions for the store. And I guess you can handle all the business stuff.”

“I'm very comfortable with that.”

“Okay. And you do know that if the grant money doesn't come through, then I won't-”

“Oh, I'm gonna get the money,” Patrick cut him off with a degree of confidence in his voice that sent a shiver up David’s spine. He told himself that it was a completely normal reaction to strong, self-assured speakers, like Nelson Mandela, or Cher. 

That was it; Patrick was basically a shorter, more masculine Cher. Mystery solved. 

And just like that the pair was frozen once more. David spun around to find Tom exactly as he’d left him, leaning casually against a display table.

“Well it’s nice to know why you’re showing me something for once,” David said.

“Oh?” Tom replied, curious.

“Yeah, we can actually skip the guesswork and the morality lesson this time.”

“Well do tell,” the angel prompted.

“It’s the moment that really secured me the business, right? I mean, you wouldn’t have made me watch Patrick offer to help me get more money if I didn’t really need it, or if he never actually manages to get it for me. And, much as I hate to admit it, budgeting and number crunching have never really been my strong suits, so clearly he plays an important part in the store. Is this like, the start of a retail empire partnership, like Dolce and Gabbana? Rose and - ” he realized he didn’t know Patrick’s last name.

“Brewer,” Tom offered.

David grimaced a little. “Maybe we’ll just use first names, like the Olsen’s fragrance line. Or, you know, the Olsens in general."

Tom looked at him appraisingly. “I gotta say David, that was a pretty solid analysis. No guessing, you sounded very sure of yourself.”

David tried not to look too proud, but his smile betrayed the satisfaction he took in Tom’s assessment.

“It’s completely wrong of course, but really, you almost had me convinced.”

The smile slipped off David’s face and was replaced with utter bewilderment. “What do you mean, wrong? It was a business discussion. Literally a discussion about the state of my business. Are you about to tell me this whole thing is a metaphor for my relationship with my parents or something?”

“No, definitely not. This,” he gestured at the two men frozen in front of the register, “is the moment you realize that you’re into Patrick.”

David stood stunned for a moment while he processed Tom's words. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and let out a theatrical imitation of a laugh. 

Tom let him go at first, but after almost thirty seconds David was still laughing and showed no signs that he intended to stop. “Okay, really now,” Tom sighed. “That’s a bit much.”

David seemed to disagree, and communicated his disagreement by actually increasing the volume of the laugh. Then, as a last minute touch, he brought his hands to his stomach and doubled over.

Tom crossed his arms and patiently waited for David to call the curtain on his performance, which he did by finally straightening up and wiping away non-existent tears from the corners of his eyes, before setting his face back to its standard expression of cool disinterest.

“Hilarious.”

Tom shook his head. “Which part?”

“The part where you suggest that I fall for my Kinsey scale zero business partner.”

“And that’s funny to you because…”

David smirked, willing to humor Tom on this flight of fancy. “Because, and this is without even getting into how profoundly stupid it would be to hook up with my business partner before the store even opens, I don’t fall for straight guys.”

Tom’s face twisted in disbelief. “I’m sorry, are you forgetting that I was witness to your entire high school career?”

“Not at all. Those four years of hell was actually great learning experience. It’s why I can confidently say that I’ve been there, done that, spent most of my junior prom crying about it - “

“Senior too.”

“Yes, senior too,” David added begrudgingly. “And it taught me that unrequited crushes on straight friends exclusively fall on a spectrum of ‘mildly annoying’ to ‘heartbreaking’. Which is why, as I said before, _I don’t fall for straight guys._ ”

Tom stared at David, slack jawed. When he finally seemed to realize that David was done with his little speech, he began to slowly shake his head. “I don’t even know where to begin unpacking that.”

Davis pursed his lips and hummed. “Umm, what’s to unpack? I feel like I made my points pretty clear.”

“Yeah, but they were really stupid points.”

“ _Excusez moi?_ ”

“You heard me.”

“Well, please, start unpacking then.”

“Where do I even begin? How about with the idea that you have any control, and I do mean _any_ , over who you fall for?”

“It’s a carefully honed skill - 

“No, it’s a made up one.”

David glared at him, unable to come up with a retort before Tom began speaking again.

“Do you know how different and, let’s be honest, profoundly uninteresting the world would be if people had any say in who they found themselves attracted to? Sure, extramarital affairs would plummet and the unemployment rate for divorce lawyers would skyrocket, but at the cost of who knows how many people never so much as peeking their heads out of the closet because they could just will themselves into falling for someone that requires no tense introductions to their super religious grandmothers?”

“I didn’t say everyone could do it,” David replied, having found his voice again. “It’s just a very particular skill that I have spent many years working on so as to avoid awkward situations and miscommunications.”

“Uh huh. Well this skill sounds like it would require you to be damn good at clocking straight guys.”

“Oh, I am," David assured him. 

“And you’re _never_ wrong?”

David sighed, knowing exactly what Tom was getting at. “Look, I’ve spent most of my life having people automatically assume I’m gay, so I’m not saying mistakes _never_ happen.”

“But Patrick, you’re pretty sure about him?”

David snorted. “I mean, yeah.” He saw the doubt on Tom’s face and it only made him want to double down on his claim. “Oh come on, look at him! He’s got Nebraska face!”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said these words before, but I don’t know what that means," Tom replied, dumbfounded. 

David marched over to where Patrick stood frozen like a statue and waved a hand in front of his face, as though that alone could explain everything. Tom shook his head, still lost. 

“Nebraska face,” David huffed impatiently, unsure as to how he could make it any clearer. “Like...wholesome. Pure. The gayest thing about him is probably the rainbow strap on the acoustic guitar that he definitely brings with him on camping trips to start a rousing singalong of ‘Wagon Wheel’. Ergo: Nebraska face. Get it?”

Tom cocked his head to the side like he was trying to solve a riddle. “I guess,” he said, with obvious reluctance, "but I just want to be clear that there _are_ gay people in Nebraska.”

“Ugh, _I know_ , it’s just an example. Saskatchewan face works too, it’s just a bit of a mouthful.”

“And you’re not into those kind of faces?”

David looked back at Patrick and studied his features more closely. He certainly wasn’t his usual type. To begin with, he was shorter than David, a little stocky. It certainly didn’t make him unattractive, but David usually gravitated towards men around his height, with slighter, more wiry builds.

The face was round, almost boyish, a far cry from the kind of sharp jawline and high cheekbones that he typically found attractive in his male partners. He was used to hard bony edges, and he didn’t think Patrick had a single one of those anywhere on his body. The eyes were brown, he’d noticed that before, but now that he was seeing them up close he noticed tiny specs of hazel rested along the edge closest to the iris. They were warm, in color and in nature, and he cringed a little at how quick he’d been to call them basic.

The smile, he hated to admit it, really was great. Not just because it was a clear testament to the power of the aforementioned orthodontic work, but because it enhanced every other feature that surrounded it. It made the eyes look brighter, the cheeks wider, hell, it almost made him look taller. It became him. 

David had known more than his fair share of stunningly beautiful people in his life, some who had come by it naturally, others who had dropped good money for the privilege. He tried to picture them in his mind now: the patrons at his galleries, the bartenders and waitresses at the invite-only clubs, the recent design school grads whose rent checks came signed by their parents every month. All of them some form of aspiring actor or model, living in New York, waiting for their big break. Or an even bigger break for those who did manage to get into the circuit only to realize how much work it actually was when all you had was a nice body and zero name recognition. He thought of them all, flipping through their faces like polaroids in his mind, and realized that after a certain point they all looked exactly the same.

Part of that was a natural side effect of hanging out with models, who by the very nature of their job functioned as exceptionally good looking clothing hangers. Designers weren’t on the lookout for striking features or charming quirks; they needed ten different people who could wear thirty different outfits and look good in all of them.

That world, which up until recently David had called his own, would have had no particular use for a smile like Patrick’s. _T_ _heir loss_ , he thought, surprising himself.

The noise of a throat clearing came from behind him, and David realized he’d been staring at Patrick for a solid minute, a fact he also realized would not have escaped Tom’s notice.

He spun back around, keeping his face as impassive as he could manage. “It’s um...it’s a good face.”

“I see,” Tom replied. “The kind of face you could maybe fall for?”

“Who’s to say?” David deflected, wondering how much longer he’d need to keep this up for before Tom snapped them somewhere, _anywhere_ , that Patrick wasn’t.

“Who’s to...are you kidding me?!” David took a step back at the surprising strength of Tom’s disbelief. “David, I don’t technically have a body, let alone a sex drive, but when I heard this - ”

He clapped his hands and Patrick’s voice filled both the room and David’s head.

**_Oh, I’m going to get the money._ **

“ - I almost wanted to throw him up on that counter and make out with him myself! You’re telling me that did nothing for you?! And so help me God if your answer includes the words ‘Nebraska face’ I’m going to - ”

“Okay, hold on,” David stopped him. “I never said I didn’t find straight guys attractive. The body wants to make out with whoever the body wants to make out with.” He thought that briefly that his tendency to date people who didn’t treat him seem to respect him as perfect evidence of that, but didn’t dare admit that out loud. “I said I don’t let myself fall for them.”

“Convinced as you are of that ability, working next to a guy you want to make out with everyday still sounds like a very slippery slope to falling for them.”

To that, David had no response. He couldn’t disagree with him. Everything about the situation screamed _Danger Will Robinson!_ but what could he do about it? It was yet another advantage that New York had over Schitt’s Creek: if he ever found himself pining over someone completely unavailable, there were literally eight million other people who could turn to instead. But in a town with a population of less than two thousand and a store with a population of two, the odds were simply not in his favor. 

Tom seemed satisfied by David’s inability to discount what he was saying, a rare victory against an impossibly stubborn opponent.

“But what do I know?” Tom asked lightly. “I don’t even have a body, let alone someone to make out with.”

David let out a soft groan and walked, shoulders slumped, to lean against the table next to Tom. 

“Is it really so bad?” Tom asked.

David gave him a sideways glance. “Can you be more specific?”

“Breaking a twenty year long self-preservation streak? I know it’s a blow to your ego but - “

“It has nothing to do with my ego.”

Tom raised a brow that seemed to disagree.

“It doesn't,” David insisted. “It’s the self preservation thing. I know you’ve never been in love or even in lust, but you never shut up about the fact that you’ve spent straight up thousands of years observing people.”

“So?”

“So, in all those years, did you ever notice how profoundly fucking unpleasant it is to want someone who doesn’t want you back?”

He half expected a quick dismissal from Tom, maybe a lecture comparing the pain of an unrequited crush to the horrors of war or famine. Instead, Tom seemed to actually consider his words with a quiet regard.

“How about false hope?” David pressed. “That one’s a real double whammy in that it almost always ends in emotional devastation, with the added bonus of having done it to yourself.”

David figured the world had spent enough time trying to break his heart. He didn't need to give it any help.

“Yeah,” Tom finally replied softly. “Yeah, it sucks.”

David was too surprised by Tom’s expression of sympathy to notice his fingers coming together.


	7. Short and Canadian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David discovers his own personal Mr. Darcy

They were back in Ray’s house. Future David was sat at Patrick’s desk, his business application open between them. He was close enough to hear their conversation without even trying.

“Um, you're either very impatient, or extremely sure of yourself.” Wait a second.

“I threw you a bit of a change-up there, huh?” David had heard this conversation before.

“Yeah, again, I don't know what that means, I don't play cricket.” There was the smile. He expected it this time, and there it was.

He looked over at Tom, perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t.”

“It’s just,” he pointed at where Patrick and Future David were wrapping up their meeting. “You already showed me this. I _know_ you did. Why are we back here?”

“I realized I’d never actually explained why I showed you this in the first place.”

“You didn’t?” David searched his memory and realized Tom was right. They had gone from the first meeting to him falling apart in front of Stevie to the voicemails without much in the way of any real discussion.

“Well, what was there to really talk about?” David asked, though he didn’t sound particularly sure of himself. “You were showing me the moment I decided to strike out on my own, start my own store. You thought a successful business would be enough to keep me in Schitt’s Creek. Right?”

“Once again - solid analysis, wrong conclusion.”

David threw up his arms. “Well what is it then? Why are we here?”

“We’re here because this is the moment Patrick realizes that he’s into you.”

David stared at him blankly. He wanted to give him the opportunity to bring out the camera crew and confess that this whole thing had been a reboot episode of Punk’d, made possible by the use of bath salts and a number of other strong hallucinogens.

When that didn’t happen, he looked over and watched as Patrick handed Future David the blank application forms. “This moment?” he asked. “Really?”

“Did you have a better one in mind?”

“No,” he said, turning back to Tom. “No, it’s just that this is...nothing. Nothing romantic is happening here. We’re just being mildly combative dicks to each other.”

“You would be surprised how many relationships start out that way.”

“Really?”

“If immediately liking one another was a prerequisite for a successful relationship, the global population would be half of what it is today and like ninety five percent of all romantic comedies would cease to exist.”

“No Bridget Jones’s Diary?” David asked with a degree of concern that most people reserved for discussing the fates of real live human beings.

“To say the least. I mean technically it was based off of Pride and Prejudice so - ”

“The one with Keira Knightley?”

“I was actually talking about the book but - you know what? Never mind. You were right the first time: No Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

“My god.” He sounded sufficiently horrified by the thought.

“Indeed,” Tom replied gravely, his sarcasm missing David by a mile. “Which in this case, would kind of make Patrick your Colin Firth.”

David’s head jerked up with interest, his face betraying how many buttons Tom had just pushed for him. His brows shot up like they were desperately trying to greet his hairline.

“My Colin Firth?”

“Minus the English accent, but sure.”

David absentmindedly bit at his fingernails as he considered what Tom was suggesting. He had spent more time than he’d ever care to admit daydreaming about being swept off his feet by a charmingly befuddled romantic suitor like Mr. Darcy ever since he was a teenager.

Granted, in these daydreams his suitors were considerably taller and, as Tom had rightly pointed out, more English.

He’d seen Bridget Jones at least a dozen times in theaters, and made his dad score him an early copy of the movie on both VHS and DVD before it was available in stores. It was the first and only time he’d ever asked his dad for a professional favor. Unless you counted all the years that his father’s video store empire had bankrolled his lifestyle, which David never seemed to do.

“Wait,” he said, holding up a finger. “If he’s my Colin Firth then who’s the Hugh Grant in this scenario?”

Tom shook his head, confused. “There is no Hugh Grant.”

“Well then it’s not really like Bridget Jones’s Diary - ”

“Oh my god David, the Bridget Jones thing was your analogy, not mine!” He looked like he was about two seconds away from punching David if the name ‘Bridget’ so much as crossed his lips. “The point is that this guy right here,” he waved madly in Patrick’s direction, “is quite possibly the single best thing that will ever happen to you.”

His words yanked David out of his British rom-com daydream like a dog that had taken off after a rabbit and forgotten just how short its tether was.

“That,” he said slowly, “is a _hell_ of a claim to make.”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed, throwing his hands up in surrender, “I suppose it is. But it’s true.”

David looked over at Patrick, who was now typing away at his computer, blissfully unaware of the fact that he was being watched. Not just watched, but weighed and measured as the pinnacle of David’s romantic life.

An impressive feat considering just how many partners that life had featured. Less impressive if you actually considered the general quality of those partners. Thoroughly unimpressive if you looked solely at the ones who described themselves as ‘performance artists’.

“A claim like that would require some serious evidence to back it up,” David said, still observing Patrick.

“Umm, yeah. I mean - yes, it would.” Tom sounded taken aback by the fact that David hadn’t responded with his usual staunch denial of what he was trying to tell him. Mild skepticism was actually a vast improvement. “Would you like to see some?” he asked cautiously, like he expected the brief spell of receptiveness to be broken at any moment.

“Okay,” he turned back to Tom. “What have you got?”

Tom gave the question some thought, and it occurred to David that maybe he didn’t have this whole journey as carefully planned out as he’d thought. Apparently even angels had to know how to improvise.

“How about your first date?”

David stole one more glance at Patrick. Short and Canadian, but maybe not lacking in the charm department.

“Show me.”

\-----

They popped into existence in a bathroom. It was small, with only two stalls, two urinals, and a single sink. It looked as though it hadn’t been updated since the mid-eighties, but it was clean enough. The only smell David could detect was the small but powerful lemon air freshener plugged into the wall.

“Umm...” David slowly rotated in space as though he needed to confirm that he was in fact standing in a bathroom. “I thought you were going to show me our first date?”

“I am.”

“Our first date takes place next to a toilet? I haven’t hooked up with someone in a bathroom since I was twenty-four - ”

“Twenty-seven,” Tom corrected. “Caesar’s Palace, 2012?”

David squinted, trying to remember.

“Mariah Carey’s Number One to Infinity residency?”

“Oh yeah…” David replied, a memory clearly clicking into place behind his eyes. “Okay but that barely counts. I was emotionally compromised by her acoustic performance of ‘My All’ and a substantial number of Long Island Iced Teas.”

“Noted,” Tom replied dryly. “Relax, you don’t hook up with Patrick in a bathroom on your first date. You’re meeting for dinner at the cafe and Stevie has just joined you. Which means this is the exact moment where it begins to dawn on Patrick that you didn’t know he was asking you out on an actual date.”

David shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I know that?”

“Because you _didn’t_ realize he was asking you out on a date. You thought he was buying you a pity dinner because your parents forgot your birthday.”

“ _They forgot my birthday?!_ ”

“Honestly, with the amount of drugs your mother demanded from the doctor to make it through your birth, it’s kind of a miracle she even remembers she has a son.” He glanced down at his watch and then whistled like he was calling a dog. “Focus up, David.”

David glared at him resentfully. “Focus on what exactly? The urinal cakes or empty toilet rolls?”

Tom ignored the question, keeping his eye trained on his watch. He pointed towards the door. “In 3...2...1.”

Patrick came through the door, throwing the lock behind him despite the fact that it wasn’t a single occupancy bathroom. He paced the length of the room once, twice, three times, keeping his eyes trained on the ground. At the start of his fourth loop he made a beeline for one of the urinals instead, causing David to quickly turn around lest he become deeply familiar with Patrick in a way he wasn’t quite ready for yet.

He was prepared for the sound of a zipper being pulled down when instead he heard a soft groan come from behind him, followed by Patrick’s voice. “What am I even doing? I don’t actually need to use the bathroom.”

David looked cautiously over his shoulder in time to see Patrick do an about-face and crossed to the sink. He splashed some water in his face and grabbed a handful of paper towels off the counter, He was in the middle of patting himself dry when he met his own gaze in the mirror and David saw his shoulders fall.

“He brought Stevie,” Patrick said to his own reflection. “He brought Stevie, because she’s his friend, and it’s his birthday, and that’s who you invite to birthday dinners, which is what this is.” David cringed, recognizing the tone of a man trying to reason with himself.

Patrick continued his one man conversation as he flicked on the tap and started to methodically wash his hands, an act that David would bet good money he wasn’t even conscious of doing at that point.

“You don’t invite friends on dates, so this is _clearly_ not a date. Which makes sense, because you never told him it was a date and because he thinks you’re straight and because you never gave him a reason to think you weren’t straight and oh my god shut the fuck up Patrick.” His voice grew more and more strained with each word and it was clear the reasoning had run its course. Patrick leaned forward until his forehead rested against the mirror, before he began to slowly and methodically bang his head into his own reflection.

David reached out a hand to place it reassuringly on Patrick’s shoulder, but stopped a few inches short. What would be the point?

Through everything Tom had shown him so far, he’d found himself experiencing the same few emotions on a cycle: embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, a constant undercurrent of the suspicion that he was being fucked with. But watching Patrick unravel in the Cafe Tropical bathroom was the first time he could recall feeling well and truly helpless.

David looked at Tom, who must have been able to see the desperation on David’s face. “He’s fine.”

“No, he’s talking to himself in the third person and bouncing his head off the wall.”

“Okay, he _will be_ fine. See?”

Patrick ceased his head banging and stood upright once more. He ran a quick hand through his hair and straightened the collar of his jacket. He gave himself one final look over in the mirror and said, “Yep, this is the worst.”

He paused and stared at himself expectantly, as though there was a chance his reflection might break ranks with reality and disagree with him. When that failed to happen, he simply nodded and sighed. “Yeah...the worst.” He turned on his heel, unlocked the door, and disappeared back into the cafe.

David stared at Tom pointedly, gesturing towards the mirror where Patrick had just had his remarkably self-contained breakdown. “You’re right, he sounds like he’s on a real upswing!”

“I’m sorry, is that genuine concern I detect in your voice?” Tom asked, brow arched. “It’s hard to tell, I don’t have many other instances to compare it to.”

David crossed his arms and suddenly appeared fascinated by tile pattern on the floor. “I’m not _not_ concerned about him.”

“Oh my God, is that hard for you to admit to feeling a genuine human emotion aside from disgust and mild outrage at unhelpful customer service?”

“Okay, fine!” David snapped. “Yes, I am concerned about Patrick. I feel bad that I, I mean future me, didn’t realize that this was a date. I feel bad that I assumed he was straight. I feel bad that I invited Stevie to cockblock the both of us! So there, I just feel bad, are you happy?!”

Tom, who had been driven a step back by both the volume and theatrical hand gestures David’s little speech had managed to produce, did in fact look pretty pleased. “Am I happy that you feel bad? No, of course not. But am I happy that you just demonstrated that you’re capable of basic human empathy? Absolutely thrilled.”

“You and all three therapists my parents attempted to send me to in high school. What a rush.”

“You know, I’m going to choose to ignore that sarcasm and instead offer a reward for your breakthrough.”

“Aw shucks Dr. Phil, how kind of you.”

“Don’t push it,” he warned. “Since you’re so concerned about having ruined this date for Patrick, I’m going to let you see what I meant when I told you that he was going to be just fine.”

David leaned back against the counter and suppressed the urge to ask Tom if he could just have something off his Amazon wish list instead. The truth was that for the first time since he’d agreed to let Tom drag him along on this ridiculous endeavor, Tom was finally offering to show him things he wanted to see. It was getting harder and harder to be flippant about this version of his life, and dismissive of its appeals.

“Fine,” he relented. “For future reference, I’d also accept rewards in the form of skincare products and cashmere throws. But this works too.”

“Well I didn’t even get to mention the second half of your reward.”

“Which is?”

“A three second warning before I snap my fingers.”

Three seconds which David spent flipping him off.


	8. No Half Measures

David was aware of the feeling of movement before anything else, which worsened the usual jolt of nausea that accompanied jumping through time. When the rest of his senses caught up with him a half second later, he discovered the feeling was due to the fact that Tom had snapped them into the backseat of a moving car.

Patrick was driving, which meant that the head he was staring at the back of was his own. Tom was seated next to him, a strange smile playing at the corners of his lips.

“Is this the same night?” David asked.

He could make out a little of Patrick’s shirt and jacket from where he sat, and while he wouldn’t put it past Patrick to only own one blazer, he was positive it was the same combination he’d been wearing in the Cafe Tropical’s men’s room.

Tom nodded. “End of the date,” he explained. “He’s dropping you off at the motel.”

David studied Patrick’s face. It didn’t look particularly miserable. He was either doing an excellent job at masking the disappointment David had secretly witnessed earlier, or the dinner itself had actually gone well.

“Did I...did he...I mean, did we get on the same page? About the whole ‘date’ thing?”

“Sort of. Stevie’s the one who finally pointed out what you had completely missed.”

“She did?”

“Smart girl,” he said with a smile. “She had this theory that if Patrick gave you a gift that was even remotely personal, then you were definitely on a date.”

“Huh,” David sank back in his seat, staring intently at the profile of Patrick’s face visible to him. “I take it he didn’t buy me a tie rack then?”

Tom’s smile broadened. “A framed copy of the receipt from the first sale Rose Apothecary ever made.”

David let out a stunned little laugh. “Smart girl.”

The car pulled into the motel parking lot, coming to a stop in front of David’s room. 

“Well, that was a fun night,” Future David declared, slapping his hands lightly on his knees with each word. 

“Because that’s a totally normal way for a person to talk,” David called from the backseat, his commentary falling on deaf ears.

“I'm really glad I decided to invest in your business, David.” There was no mistaking the sincerity in Patrick’s voice.

Future David smirked. “That is a really _lovely_ thing to say.”

“And I'm so glad you did, Patrick, because you've really helped to turn it into the success that it is.” 

“Oh good, he’s humble,” muttered David. Tom shushed him.

“Mmm!” Future David nodded. “A bold claim.” 

David expected a quick retort from Patrick, but none came. Silence stretched between the two men, their eyes locked on one another. David knew what was about to happen. His future self did too. 

He was doing that awkward twisty smile that David knew he made whenever he was about to go in for a first kiss. He could always feel it happening and trying to stop it just made it look like he was fighting off a stroke. Besides, it was relatively low on the list of things that David knew his body could do to embarrass him.

David had unconsciously been counting the seconds since Future David had spoken.

_One...two…_

He saw himself glance down at Patrick’s lips

_Three...four…_

His head moved forward, barely half an inch, enough to pretend it hadn’t happened at all if Patrick didn’t acknowledge it.

_Five...six…_

Now it was Patrick’s eye glancing down to Future David’s lips, and there wasn’t a single person in the car who didn’t notice _that_.

It was Future David who closed the gap between them, with Patrick meeting him those last few inches. He reached a hand up, the one that always held his favorite silver rings, and slipped it along Patrick’s neck, pulling him closer.

It would have been completely silent in the car if not for the quick intake of breath that David heard Patrick make when their lips met.

It was over almost as soon as it began, practically chaste by David’s standards. He’d experienced the full spectrum of first kisses in his life. The awkward ones, that forewarned of just how incompatible he and his partner would be in bed. The aggressive ones, where the other party attempted to reach his lungs with their tongue. The surprise ones, where he didn’t actually find out who it was he was making out with until the kiss was over and the house lights came on for last call.

This kiss was better. This kiss was _way_ better.

They pulled apart and held each other’s eyes for a moment until they both looked away at the same time. David stared at Patrick, who had the look of someone slowly coming out of a coma, a strange smile playing at his lips.

David couldn’t understand why he didn’t look happier. Wasn’t this what he’d wanted? Was this not how first dates ended in his world? Was he secretly Mormon and deciding if quickly proposing marriage would make up for the fact that he had just kissed a guy?

The silence was broken when Future David cleared his throat, stealing a glance at Patrick as he did.

“Thank you,” Patrick finally said, his voice low and quiet.

Future David smiled and gave a small shake of his head. “For what?”

“Um, I've never done that before..."

“ _What_ \- ” David whispered under his breath.

...with a guy.”

“ - _the fuck_.”

He turned to Tom, eyes wide, mouth agape. Tom simply blinked at David, his expression infuriatingly placid given Patrick’s bombshell.

Future David looked just as shocked as David felt, but was slightly more successful at holding his composure.

“O-Okay,” he managed to get out, with a tone that did a poor job of masking his shock.

“Yeah. And uh,” Patrick paused and let out a small, nervous laugh, “I was getting a little scared that I was gonna let you leave here without u-us having done that. So uh, thank you for...making that happen for us.”

David could feel his heart pounding in his throat. It was the stammer on the word ‘us’ that did it. He knew he had a habit of falling for people too strong and too fast, for not being more discerning about the things that drew him to his partners, but that stammer. It damn near killed him.

A smile tugged at the corner of Future David’s lips, but he managed to maintain a small degree of cool. 

“Well...fortunately I'm a very generous person.” His response earned another tiny laugh from Patrick, who had shaken off the post-coma look now that it was clear neither of them was going to flee the car as an alternative to actually having to talk about their feelings.

“Can we talk tomorrow?” he asked.

“We can talk whenever you'd like,” Future David replied softly. Then he immediately re-evaluated his offer and added, “Just preferably not before 10 a.m., because I'm not really a morning person.”

“Mmmhmm,” he hummed. “Goodnight, David.”

“Goodnight, Patrick.”

David pointed at the car door. 

“Should we be following me?” 

He knew the sentence sounded absurd as he was saying it, even if it was grammatically sound.

“No,” Tom replied. “Let’s take a ride.” 

Patrick was already putting his car into reverse and backing out into the parking lot. As he turned on to the highway he pressed a button on his steering wheel and soft music flowed from the speakers in the back seat.

“So,” David began. “I think I’m owed an apology."

“For _what_?” He looked at David like he’d lost his mind.

“For how much shit you gave me for thinking that Patrick was straight.”

“But he’s not!” He waved his hands at Patrick as if to say ‘ _behold the man driving the car, behold him in his gayness!_ ’

David resisted the urge to do any beholding. “He’s still, what, thirty something years old and he’d never even kissed a guy up until five minutes ago?”

“How many straight guys do you know that go around kissing their male business partners and _thanking_ them for it?”

“I’m not saying he _is_ straight, I’m saying it was a totally fair guess on my part to _think_ that he was.” David was entirely too invested in getting Tom to admit he had a point.

“All I remember is you using the phrase ‘Nebraska face’ repeatedly and I kinda just blacked out after that.”

“Fine,” he said, flapping his hand dismissively. “Agree to disagree.” 

They drove along in silence for a few miles, save for the low acoustic sounds that Patrick seemed to be partial to. “Is that really all you wanted to talk about?” Tom finally asked. “If I cry uncle will you stop trying to argue with me?”

David continued to stare out the window, drumming his fingers mindlessly on the sill. “You could have told me,” he said quietly.

“What, that you’re the first guy he’s been with? Is that a bad thing?”

“No,” he replied, glancing up at Patrick. “Of course not. It’s just...it’s a lot of pressure."

"So? No relationship is easy. Sometime between learning to walk upright and developing an actual spoken language, people also figured out that relationships, even the best ones, take actual work to maintain."

"This isn't just about remembering birthdays or sitting down to write out our wills. Look, from everything you've shown me I can say with a fair amount of confidence that Patrick is very sweet and very funny and _very_ inexperienced."

"He's been with a handful of girls," Tom countered. 

"Sure,” David scoffed. “Who hasn't? It's just that he is a sweet baby gay, just starting to figure himself out, and there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone's got their journey. But _my_ journey includes the fact that I should probably own stock in Trojan for how many of their products I went through by the time I graduated university, and that's not even counting Spring Break 2004 because _technically_ I don't have any memories from that week."

Tom squinted down at his seat before, apparently trying to find that week for himself. After a few seconds he flinched and said, "You definitely didn't spend it meditating, I can tell you that."

"Great, so you see where I'm coming from."

"No, actually, I don't. I think you're nervous and maybe a little paranoid. I also think the term 'baby gay' is kind of problematic and condescending, but then again so are most of the things you say, and I’ve got to pick my battles.”

David groaned, convinced Tom was purposefully being obtuse as to all the very valid reasons that a relationship with Patrick could go very, very wrong. He took a breath and tried again. "I just don't know that _I_ am the person who should be doing this with him."

"Well tough, because you're the one he chose. And personally I think you're off to a pretty good start. You handled the news with a degree of decorum I honestly didn't know you were capable of."

“I would be the first guy he’s ever been with, in any sense of the word." He desperately needed Tom to understand what a big deal that was. "He has no idea what he likes yet.”

“He likes you,” Tom pleaded. “That’s as good a place to start as any.”

“Can't you see that this has all the potential downfalls of a normal relationship with an added layer ‘don’t fuck this up or you’ll send him sprinting back into the closet as fast as his little legs can carry him’?” 

Tom ran a tired hand down his face. “You know what? I blame your parents for all this.”

David was surprised to hear the words ‘parents’ coming out of Tom’s mouth in relation to his romantic troubles. It was an aspect of his life of which they tended to stay willfully ignorant. He didn’t really believe it had much to do with homophobia on their part. They’d taken his coming out in stride, though he suspected that even all these years later they still didn’t completely understand his identity. More likely, they had just never really understood _him_.

Johnny and Moira greeted every partner he’d ever brought home in a cool but polite manner, asking the perfunctory questions expected of every parent upon meeting their child’s new beau: where are you from, what do your parents do, etc. But it never got more personal than that.

He’d asked them once why they seemed to care so little for the people he brought home. They never asked after them on their monthly calls, or remembered anything about them but the most superficial identifying details. He imagined they kept a filing cabinet somewhere in their heads where they sorted them all by those same details: the one with the blue hair, the one with the cornea tattoo, the one who went by a symbol instead of an actual name, like Prince before he went back to going by Prince.

“Oh David,” his mother had said in that odd way that made his name sound like it contained four ‘A’s. “It’s just so hard to keep track!”

“Ummm, I’m sorry it takes you too much mental energy to actually have a conversation with someone I bring home,” he’d spat into the phone.

“Now son, it’s not that at all,” Johnny had chimed in over the speaker. “It’s just you never bring home the same person twice. It’s one at Thanksgiving, another at Christmas, and come New Year’s we really have no idea who you’re spending it with.”

David hadn’t been prepared to be called out so directly like that. He stewed silently over their words only to be snapped out of it by the sound of Moira’s voice asking if their call had dropped.

What burned even worse was the interest he saw his parents take in his sister’s love life by comparison. Whenever Alexis announced that one of her flings had come to an end, sometimes by mutual decision, other times by abandonment in a foreign country, they appeared downright distraught, as though they were so sure that each relationship was the one that was going to last forever (except for Sean Penn, there had been a collective breath of relief when that was over with). 

It wasn’t until his mid-twenties that David realized why his parents were so much more invested in Alexis’s relationships than his own. It was their unspoken but deeply held belief that someone out there would be able to reign her in, keep her grounded, literally and figuratively. In their minds, Alexis needed looking after. David didn’t.

Which was a fucking laugh and half to him, given that he was the one who had done most of the looking after her, not them. It should have been him tightly crossing his fingers and praying that each new boyfriend would finally be the one to stick.

Instead, he usually found himself wholly unimpressed by the lineup she’d marched through the door every time she came home to visit. He wouldn’t have trusted any of them to look after houseplant, let alone his sister. 

“Not that I don’t have a laundry list of grievances with them,” he said to Tom, leaning up so he could rest his head forehead against the passenger side headrest, “but what _specifically_ are you blaming them for?”

“They’re the ones who gave you the idea that if you love someone hard enough, then eventually they’ll love you back.”

“You are describing a conversation that is far more personal than any that I've ever had either with of them.”

“It’s not like they sat you down with a copy of ‘The Five Love Languages’ and spelled it out for you. You learned by watching them.”

“Watching them what?”

“Love each other. Your father worships the ground your mother walks on. He would do anything she asks of him, and knowing your mother, she asks for _a lot_. And in return, she loves him, just as fully, just as completely. Johnny could offer Moira a ticket for the Titanic and she’d get right on it with him so long as they were together. How could you ever settle for anything less?”

David smiled, picturing his parents shoving women and children out of the way for a spot on one of the lifeboats. “That’s sweet. Physically impossible, but sweet.”

“Trust me, as far as your mother is concerned, Schitt’s Creek may as well be the Titanic right now.”

David threw up his hands, frustrated by his inability to argue his way out of this. “Shouldn’t I be better at this? If I grew up with such a great example of a loving, devoted relationship, then why have I spent most of my adult life _profoundly_ single?”

Tom reached over to pat the knee that he had jabbed only moments before and David fought the urge to shrink away from his touch. He had strong feelings about personal space, but at least it was better than being poked, shoved, or slapped.

“You’re not bad at it,” Tom said gently. “You just...you give your heart to the wrong people.”

David’s mind flashed through the lowlight reel that was his dating history, and shuddered at the realization that the birthday clown didn’t even crack the top five when it came to how poorly he’d allowed himself to be treated. He’d been with people who’d stolen from him, people who’d ignored him, people who treated his boundaries as nothing more than mild mannered suggestions. He twitched uncomfortably, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic in the backseat of Patrick’s car.

If Tom noticed his discomfort, he politely chose to ignore it. “That’s what I meant when I said I blamed your parents,” he continued. “They showed you exactly how good a relationship can be when you’re willing to give yourself over to someone completely and unconditionally, but you missed out on the most important lesson: it only works if the other person is willing to give themselves back to you. That’s the _only_ way it can work. No half measures.”

David glanced up at Ray’s house in time to see the last light go out upstairs, and he knew Patrick would be getting into bed. He wondered if he’d sleep much tonight, or if he’d spend most of the night staring up at the ceiling, replaying his kiss with Future David. David had a strong suspicion that it was the latter, and an even stronger suspicion that if Tom snapped them back to the motel at that exact moment, he’d find his future self doing the exact same thing.

“I suppose all this is a very roundabout way of saying that Patrick is the right sort of person I should be giving myself too?”

“And here I thought you were barely paying attention.”

“You know, you really should’ve opened with the kiss. That would have gotten my attention a lot faster.”

“I opened with you sleeping with Stevie,” Tom replied, as though it were an arbitrary distinction.

“You might think you know a lot about people from all the time you’ve spent watching us, but there are some things you can only learn from experience. First of them being: a great kiss beats a crappy lay any day of the week.”

He expected Tom to laugh at him, maybe lecture him in the length and breadth of his knowledge of the human psyche. Instead he simply regarded David for a moment before giving a slow nod. “I’ll remember that for next time.”

David remembered Tom admitting that he was only the third person he’d ever gotten to try to help, and wondered just how long he would have to wait for a ‘next time’.

“You don’t think it’s a sign that you already this worried about being a good partner for Patrick, and you’re not even the one in the relationship with him yet?” Tom asked.

“That’s a very optimistic ‘yet’. I still think there’s a pretty good chance I’m dreaming.” It was a lie, but Tom didn’t seem to mind letting him have it. “And I think it’s a sign that I have more anxiety than my mind knows what to do with. Like I didn’t have enough shit in the real world to worry about; it had to go metaphysical.”

Unfortunately David knew that Tom was very good at knowing when he was trying to avoid a difficult question, and was more than willing to call him on it. “Let me show you how good you can be for Patrick,” he said. “How good you can be for each other.”

“Are you going to take no for an answer?”

Tom looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled apologetically. “No, I won’t.”

David allowed his head to fall back with a soft sigh. He stared at the grey fabric ceiling and resigned himself to the impending snap. “You’re still a dick, but points for honesty.”

\-----

“Where are we?”

“Stevie’s apartment.” 

David took note of the flannel bedspread and Sarah McLachlan poster and nodded. “Yeah, that tracks. And we’re here because…”

“Because she offered it to you and Patrick for the night, so you two could have some alone time.”

David’s eyes went wide. “Alone time...as in, time spent alone. With each other. And presumably fewer articles of clothing than usual?”

“Presumably.” Tom seemed mildly amused by David’s sudden awkwardness around a sexually charged topic. David was normally an open book when it came to his own sordid past, and yet now he was wringing his hands and staring intently at the bed. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm?” David snapped out of his thoughts. “Yes, yeah, mm-hmm. It’s just...will this be the first time that Patrick and I - I mean, not _I_ I, but you know, the future I, the future David, umm...will this be the first time that the two of them have ‘alone time’?”

“I suppose that depends on whether you count the past week you’ve spent dry humping like teenagers in the apothecary’s stockroom as ‘alone time’.”

“Mmm...charming.” He didn’t take his eyes off the bed.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tom asked with what sounded like actual concern this time.

David took a steadying breath. “Yes,” he replied as though saying it would make it true. “I just don’t know that _this_ ,” he waved a hand in the direction of the bed, “is really something I need to see.”

“Huh...and how do you even know what it is you’re about to see?”

“Well you just…” he trailed off, confused. “Didn’t you just say? You know, ‘alone time’?”

“I said that’s why Stevie offered you and Patrick her place for,” he agreed. “I didn’t say that I brought you here to watch you get laid. I could have just taken you back in time to your semester studying abroad in the Netherlands if I really wanted to see that.”

“Mmmkay, you know for an angel, you can be pretty fucking uncouth sometimes.” 

“I’m sure that’s what attracted you to the Van de Berg triplets,” he said with a wink. “Their couthness.”

David glared at him but ignored the shot. “So if I’m not here to watch a gay deflowering live and in technicolor, then what’s the point?”

“And you accuse me of being uncouth,” Tom muttered loud enough for David to hear. He cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “Do you know why I showed you the first kiss you shared with Patrick?” 

A few answers immediately came to mind, none of which were accompanied by any confidence that they were what Tom wanted to hear. David shook his head.

“So I could prove to you that you could be brave.”

David felt a flush of heat creep into his cheeks at Tom’s words. “There’s nothing brave about kissing a guy,” he said, hoping he sounded as nonchalant as he wanted to. “Trust me, I’ve done it a million times.” 

“You put yourself out there in a way that would have crushed you had you been rejected, how is that not brave?”

David cringed. “ _Crushed_ is maybe too strong a strong word.”

“How else would it have felt if Patrick had turned you down? If he’d told you that you’d misread every signal and then politely, because this is Patrick we’re talking about here, asked you if you could both pretend as though the whole thing had never happened? And then had to face him at work the next day? And the day after that, and the day after that?”

David blanched as he actually tried to imagine the scenario that Tom described. “Okay, crushed would actually be a pretty accurate term.”

“So you see my point. Don’t sell yourself short David. I know you think that your life here in Schitt’s Creek, the one that I’m trying to show you at least, is small. That the stakes are somehow less important because they exist here and not in New York City or London or Paris. I need you to understand just how far that is from the truth. _That’s_ why we’re here.”

It was good that for once David had no idea how to respond to his words. No quips or casual dismissals came to mind. He was lost in his own thoughts when Tom snapped his fingers.


	9. The Himalayas of Sex

Aside from the moment of breathlessness, David could barely tell he’d moved. The only difference from the moment before was that the bed was now occupied by Future David and Patrick’s intertwined bodies. David saw his own hands gripping Patrick’s hips as they rolled against him in a move that looked obscene even with clothes on. His first instinct was to turn and put his back to the couple. 

Tom grabbed his shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I promise that I didn’t bring you here to witness a technicolor deflowering, okay? Just watch.” David reluctantly allowed himself to be turned around. Patrick’s hands were now snaking under Future David’s sweater and up his back. He saw himself arch into Patrick’s touch, and felt a shiver reverberate up his own spine.

Patrick pulled one hand free from the sweater and attempted to maneuver it down to Future David's belt. David lost sight of it but realized Patrick must have been having some trouble managing it when he heard him mutter a few choice curse words under his breath. 

“Let me get that,” Future David offered gently. 

“No,” Patrick snapped, and immediately looked as though he regretted his tone. “No,” he repeated more softly. “I’ve got it.”

He didn’t have it. After another fifteen seconds of awkward fumbling, he gave up and grabbed at the waist of David’s pants. “Can I just - ,” he tugged at the fabric.

Future David grabbed Patrick gently by the wrists. “Okay well first off these are raw denim so no, you cannot ‘just’. And second,” he sat up, carefully pulling Patrick along with him, “your hands are shaking.”

Patrick closed his eyes and his head fell forward. “David,” he began. “I uh...I have no idea what I’m doing.” His voice was uncharacteristically small, and David had to stop himself from reaching out and placing a comforting hand on Patrick’s shoulder. He bit his lip and stared at the couple, willing his future self to figure out the right thing to say, a skill that was not his strong suit, historically speaking. 

But Future David sat them up, enveloped Patrick’s hands in his own, and pulled them to his chest. “Of course you don’t,” he said, his voice impossibly understanding. “Last Friday you told me you’d never kissed a guy before. So unless you’ve had a _very_ interesting week that you forgot to tell me about, I would never expect you to know what you’re doing right now.”

Patrick looked up and smiled weakly at Future David’s quip. He bit his lower lip, and seemed reluctant to make eye contact with him. 

Future David placed a hand under his chin until Patrick would meet his gaze. 

“Is there something else?” he asked.

Patrick hesitated. “No,” he said after a beat. “It’s nothing.”

“Never in the history of mankind has someone answered the question ‘what’s wrong?’ with ‘nothing’ and actually meant it.”

David could see Tom lean toward him out of the corner of his eye. “That’s actually true,” he whispered into his ear. David waved him away, his eyes trained on Patrick.

“How about we just agree that the pants stay on for tonight?” David offered. “I mean, I brought pajamas to change into, but I can totally sleep in these.” He gestured to the skintight jeans encasing his legs, which David knew full well would be hell to try to sleep in.

Patrick bit his lip, though the corners of his lips twitched with the threat of a smile at David’s offer. “Um, it’s not just that.”

“Okay, what is it then? Talk to me.” David felt a knot of worry in his stomach slowly start unclench, as he realized with mild surprise that his future self wasn’t completely fucking this up. 

“So I, uh...I knew that I didn’t know anything. About - ” he waved a hand vaguely between himself and David, a fantastically awkward gesture that David realized was meant to encompass the entire realm of a gay sex. “ - you know...before I came here. If that makes sense.” Patrick was bordering on gibberish at this point, but Future David just nodded for him to continue. “So I thought it would be a good idea to maybe Google some...some stuff. Just so I wasn’t going in completely blind.”

“Oh no.” It barely came out a whisper, but Future David looked horrified. Patrick saw his expression and cringed.

“I just - I don’t know. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to be some kind of...of...queer sherpa leading a thirty four year old guy through the Himalayas of sex like he’s a freaking teenager!” Patrick’s voice was starting to get oddly squeaky as his panic sent it three octaves above normal.

David turned to Tom. “ _Himalayas of sex_?” he mouthed at him silently.

Tom shrugged. “I don’t recall you composing sonnets the first time you went down on a guy.”

David was about to make yet another comment on the angel’s penchant for off-color remarks at increasingly inappropriate moments when the sound of his own voice pulled his focus back to the couple on the bed.

"I just didn't want you to feel like you had to treat me like I needed…I don't know. Training wheels or pool floaties or whatever else someone in their thirties really shouldn't need to have sex."

“I've done some kinky shit in my life but nothing that involved pool flo -" he stopped speaking abruptly. He narrowed his eyes and pointed an accusatory finger at Patrick. "Tell me you didn’t,” Future David ordered.

“Didn’t what?”

“Please tell me that you didn’t watch a bunch of gay porn before coming here.” Patrick’s face flushed a deep crimson and he dropped his gaze down to the bedspread.

Future David put his hands on either side of Patrick’s face and pulled it back up until he was looking at him eye to eye. “Patrick, look at me. You watched a bunch of gay porn, didn’t you?”

Patrick was silent for a moment before his face crumpled. “I totally watched a bunch of gay porn!”

“Oh Jesus.” David shook his head.

“At first it was just for research and then yeah, maybe a little fun, but then I got deeper and deeper and I saw things that...I’m not that flexible David! I pulled my hamstring playing rec hockey in middle school and ever since then my left leg has always been a little -”

He was cut off by Future David’s hand clamping down on his mouth. 

“Okay honey, you’re spiraling, which is a feeling that I am _very_ familiar with. And while part of me is enjoying not being the most neurotic person in this relationship for a hot second, I can also say from experience that no good comes from letting your brain go down this path.” 

He pulled his hand back and waited for Patrick’s freak out to recommence. When that didn’t happen, he gently placed his hands on Patrick’s shoulders and smiled at him reassuringly. 

“Deep breath,” he prompted, and Patrick did as he was told. “Now listen to me: I may not know who the Prime Minister is, but I do know a thing or two when it comes to exploring your sexuality.”

“You don’t know who the Prime Minister is?”

“Really not the point. Look, porn can be great. It can help you get off, it can satisfy a curiosity, maybe even give provide a little inspiration, which I think is what you were going for?” 

Patrick nodded reluctantly. 

“Right, great, zero shame in that. But what it should never, and I mean _never_ , ever be used for is a standard against which you compare your own sex life. I’m serious. That way lies misery and tears and cramps and sore muscles that didn’t even get sore the fun way.”

“There’s a fun way?” Patrick squeaked

“There are _so_ _many_ fun ways.” 

Patrick leaned his head against David’s chest. “You’re right,” he admitted, his voice muffled by David’s sweater. He sat back up. “About the porn. Logically, I knew all that. I mean, it’s not like straight porn looks anything like what I’ve done with women, I don’t know why I expected this to be any different.”

“Why did you then?” Future David pressed gently.

Patrick considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “At first it was just the rush of looking at, you know...stuff that I’d never really allowed myself to look at before. I mean, I was never all that into porn to begin with. Though, you know, looking back I think we can agree that there might have been some mitigating factors at play there.”

“Agreed.”

“And that was all well and good for a while, but then I started seeing words I had never heard of, so I Googled them, which just led to more videos. Next thing I know it’s 3 AM, I’m looking at things that I didn’t know were physically possible, and my brain can’t decide if it’s horny or scared.”

“Oh it can be both, you’d be surprised."

Patrick rubbed the back of his neck in a tired gesture. “I’m sorry David, seriously. This wasn't how I planned for the night to go. I was all excited and I’m _this_ close to getting your pants off and all I can think of is the stuff I saw online, and I don’t know if you’d even be into any of that and-”

“Okay, shush,” Future David ordered him, not unkindly. “For future reference, if you ever want to know if I’m into something, just ask. That’s the only way this can work. The alternative is 'try it and wait to see if he freaks out' and I speak from experience when I say it's a terrible idea.”

Patrick gave a small nod. “Got it.”

"But also, just because I like something doesn’t mean you have to like it too, okay? This isn't a dinner party where you have to choke down some overcooked Brussels sprouts just because the host offered and you really don't want to offend. Think of this more like…a buffet, where you can try anything you want. And if you maybe try something you don't like, that's totally fine. You are under no obligation to go back for seconds."

The tension finally seemed to drain out of Patrick’s posture and he looked at Future David with so much warmth that David wanted to turn away. It felt like he was intruding on something private, even if he was technically watching himself. Something he hadn’t earned the right to witness.

"Thank you David," Patrick leaned forward and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. “For...everything.”

Future David ran a hand through Patrick’s hair, who fell into the touch. “Of course,” he demurred.

Patrick leaned in as though to kiss David and paused only an inch or so away from his mouth. "And just so I'm one hundred percent sure that I'm following you,” he spoke quietly enough that David had to strain to hear him. “In this scenario is the buffet your penis, or just like, your body in general?" 

Future David pulled back, his brow furrowed in confusion. "I mean...it was just an analogy, maybe don't get caught up in the-" he stopped, noticing the grin spreading across Patrick's face. He reached back for a pillow and lobbed it across the bed. "You are such a dick!" The pillow bounced off Patrick's head, but he was too busy laughing to notice. 

When the laughter had subsided to a mild giggle Patrick pulled Future David into a hug. "I'm sorry," he said, though David could still hear the smile in his voice. "It really was a good analogy." He pulled back, leaving a hand resting on the back of Future David's neck. "It’s just that we've only got this place for one night, and I felt bad for getting all panicky on you. But then you started talking about Brussels sprouts and I’m just supposed to let that go?"

Future David tilted his head to press a kiss into the inside of Patrick's wrist. "Well for the record, you didn't spoil anything. Also, I'm usually the one who has issues with sincerity, so just don't make a habit of this or we'll both be in some real trouble."

Patrick's hand tightened around Future David's neck and pulled him in. "Come here."

Future David hesitated. "Are you sure? I meant what I said. About trying, or _not_ trying, anything you want.” 

Patrick smiled and David felt his stomach twist again. "I know. And I think there are probably a few things I think I'd like to sample from the buffet." Future David rolled his eyes at the continued use of his food analogy. "But first, I think I'd really like to see what the buffet looks like naked." He drew Future David's head in the last few inches, and pulled them both back down onto the bed. 

David felt a tap on his shoulder. 

"Time to go." 

\-----

For a second David thought the snap hadn't worked. He was still in the exact same position in the exact same room he had been only a moment before. Then he realized that the bed in front of him was now empty. Its bedding was pulled sideways and half the pillows had found their way to the floor, but it's occupants had apparently gone elsewhere. 

"Where-" he started, before he heard a shower shut off in the room behind him. To his left he heard a clink of glasses, and turned to see himself clothed in a pair of Burberry boxer briefs and white undershirt leaving the kitchen. He placed two glasses of water down on Stevie's nightstand and crawled back into bed, pulling the covers up and over his lap. He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them tight. 

David saw a smile on his own face that he didn't recognize. It was…content. Not a word he ever thought he would use to describe himself. Not even content in a sexually satisfied, ‘I just got laid' sort of way’, which would have been a fair guess given the state of the sheets. The kind of content where you actually look at home in your own skin, a sensation almost entirely foreign to David. Less foreign to his future self, evidently. 

The bathroom door opened and Patrick emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist. He smiled shyly when he saw Future David and then tossed off the towel, much less shyly David noted, to pull on some flannel pajama bottoms and join him in the bed. 

"Hi there," Future David greeted him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips and handing him some of the covers. 

"Hi." That fucking smile again. 

“So that was nice.”

Patrick grabbed one of David’s arms and pulled it around him, resting his head on the inside of David’s shoulder. “Nice is certainly a word you could use for it.”

“Well are there any other words you would like to use?”

Patrick laughed and his proximity to Future David’s ear appeared to send a shiver down his spine. “I think I'm the wrong person to ask.”

David pulled back to get a view of his face, clearly assuming he was joking. “Sorry?”

Patrick placed a reassuring hand on Future David’s face and kissed him again. He pulled back and the look on his face struck David as an odd combination of satisfied and bashful, like the gay eighth dwarf that Disney left on the editing room floor.

“It’s just that my sex life up until this point had been a bit…complicated. But if you’d ever actually asked me to describe it, I probably would have told you it was fine. And I honestly believed that it was fine at the time.”

“And now?”

Patrick let out a little laugh, like even trying to answer that question would be an absurd endeavor. But he still tried. “Now my baseline for fine is completely screwed up. What I thought was fine before was definitely not remotely fine, and I don’t even know what I would consider fine - “

“Okay please just stop saying the word fine.”

“- because now the only two descriptions I can actually use now are disappointing and…”

He searched for the right word. “And?” Future David pressed.

“And perfect.”

Future David’s brows shot up. “Perfect?" he repeated back, his voice high and tight. "That’s, um...wow. That’s a hell of a review.”

David didn’t really believe the word himself. This was not the first time he’d ever been a formerly straight guy’s ‘first’, and while he prided himself on being a generous and patient partner, the scenes rarely unfolded without their fair share of awkward groping, stuttered apologies, and the occasional premature finale. ‘Perfect’ was nowhere in his lexicon when it came to describing those encounters.

It could certainly be fun for a while, but he also quickly learned that the situation didn’t lend itself to forming lasting relationships. Inevitably they all seemed to grow tired of David and, having gotten whatever they needed from him, it would quickly become clear that they never considered him as having any real long term romantic potential. It was more like test driving a Tesla for them: brief, luxurious, and not something most people have any intention of following through on.

Which is why he had been surprised by the utter sincerity with which Patrick had then explained how that was exactly what he _didn’t_ want David to be. As absolutely disastrous as the idea of watching a bunch of gay porn in anticipation of their first night together was, the intention of not wanting David to feel like he had to play teacher for the night, of not wanting him to feel pressured to make everything go perfectly, was incredibly generous and empathetic and...Patrick. It was incredibly Patrick.

Patrick pulled back far enough to see the disbelief in Future David’s face and laughed. “As perfect as it could be while still including an erotica-induced panic attack.”

Future David relaxed and pulled Patrick to him.

“I didn’t know it could feel like this,” Patrick said quietly. “I didn’t know that it didn’t have to be so damn hard.” 

Future David didn’t pry as to what he meant by ‘it’, and David suspected he knew why. Patrick might have been talking about sex or intimacy, or maybe just life in general. Whatever it was, David could say he felt the same way.

No, wait. That wasn’t right.

Future David felt the same way. The man in the bed, drifting off to sleep with his business partner and lover wrapped around him, felt the same way. That was the David who Patrick had fallen for, and who had clearly fallen for Patrick in turn. 

But that wasn’t him. He was just a voyeur. He felt that same urge to look away as he’d had earlier. He was prepared to chalk it up to his own usual discomfort with open affection, but he would have been lying to himself. He knew that it was because it was simply hard to watch Patrick fall in love with someone who looked like him, dressed like him, and talked like him, but was beginning to feel more and more like a stranger.

Logically, that was easy for David to accept. What he couldn’t find the logic in was how much it hurt. 

He realized he hadn’t heard a word out of Tom even though the scene they were watching was nothing more than two people falling into a peaceful sleep. He turned to find Tom staring at him from the kitchen table with the same unusual intensity that he was beginning to suspect he would never get used to. 

“Um, can we take a break please?” David asked.

“A break?”

“Yeah, I know this is usually the point where you start playing fast and loose with the snaps but just - is there a pause button or something that I can press here?”

Tom looked at him curiously. “No need” he replied, “They’re not getting up anytime soon. Take a minute, sit down.” He nodded to the empty seat next to him.

David dropped down, keeping his eyes trained on the figures in the bed. 

“Anything you want to talk about?” Tom ventured. “Made any decisions?”

David scoffed. “You really think a future where I have some really great sex with my business partner and he doesn’t immediately panic dive back into the closet is enough to keep me in Schitt’s Creek?”

“If I thought great sex were enough to keep you here, I would have actually shown you having sex. But I didn’t.”

David turned away from him, annoyed. “That didn’t stop you from making me watch Stevie and I attempt to drunkenly mash our crotches together.” 

“You’re stalling. What’s really on your mind?”

David chewed his lip, nervous at the prospect of turning nebulous thoughts into concrete words. He pointed at the bed. “This is nice,” he finally said.

“Nice?”

“Yes.”

“You wanted me to press pause so you could tell me how nice this little scene is?” 

“No,” he started, then hesitated for a moment before deciding how he wanted to phrase his next words. “I just - hmm. I would really just like to know how I screw this up.”

The question appeared to catch Tom off guard, no small feat for an omniscient being. “I don’t understand.”

David groaned. He had hoped that for all Tom’s boasting about how well he knew David, he wouldn’t have to explain any further.

“Look, I know that I’ve been mocking this whole thing from the start. Patrick and the idea of a relationship with him and everything. But now,” he waved a hand in the direction of the bed, “I’m trying really hard to come up with something absolutely devastating to say about all this and I can’t. It’s nice. Patrick is a button. He’s cute and he’s smart and it looks like he gives me unrelenting amounts of shit, so I get it. I see the appeal here.”

“Good,” Tom replied hopefully. “It’d be nice if you didn’t just admit you were openly looking for reasons to be a dick about everything, but that’s still really good.”

“Don’t get too excited now. As great as this whole thing looks, I know myself too well to think it has legs.”

“Legs?”

“Sustainability,” David rephrased. “Lasting power. Nice as this is, it’s temporary.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I know me. I’ll admit that I actually let myself believe for a minute that he,” David pointed at his own sleeping figure, “was a completely different person than I am. Big picture, it seems like he’s really changed, just like you said. And maybe he has. But deep down, he’s still me, which means he’s still got the same ability to self-destruct at a moment’s notice.”

“That’s pretty cynical of you, don’t you think?”

“You know everything about me, remember? Am I wrong?”

Tom crossed his arms, clearly unwilling to entertain David’s questions, but also not willing to lie.

“That’s what I thought,” David continued. “And that ability is fine when it’s just me. I freak out and I don’t answer calls for a week and I drink my bodyweight in prosecco and take some people home that maybe I shouldn’t, but I come out the other end relatively unscathed.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that I might come out of that alright, but Patrick won’t.”

“You care about him then? His well-being?”

“It wouldn't be fair to him,” David replied diplomatically. “This is his first relationship with a guy and he’s like a teenager who starts dating their high school crush and is convinced they’re going to be together forever. But we won’t be. And when he figures that out, it’s going to crush him and it’s going to be my fault. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but I know it’ll be on me.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself,” Tom observed.

“This isn’t my first time around the block.” He sounded tired. “So I was wondering if you could go ahead and skip the rest of the relationship highlight reel you’ve got us on, and head straight to it’s inevitable conclusion instead?”

“The inevitable conclusion?”

“Yes. Where I break his heart. Once I see that, I can wash my hands of this whole thing. No offense,” he added, to his own surprise. “I know you worked really hard to sell this one. You almost had me going there for a minute with the pillow talk stuff, but I think it’s time to wrap this up.”

“You really think you’re the one who breaks his heart?”

“Ever heard the story about the scorpion and the frog? It’s in my nature.”

Tom opened his mouth to speak, then appeared to think better of it. 

“Okay,” he finally said after some thought. “Let’s skip ahead to the heartbreak.”


	10. A Jumbo Sized Cookie and Some Grilled Meats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge apologies for pressing pause on this for a couple months. Once season six started up I knew there was going to be stuff from it that I wanted to include, so I figured I'd wait for the finale before I accidentally wrote myself into a corner.

Patrick and the Rose family were seated at a picnic table in front of the motel. They were raising their glasses, and it sounded like Johnny was proposing a toast.

“What’s the occasion?” David asked Tom.

“It’s your four month anniversary.”

David looked aghast. “I don’t do monthiversaries.”

“I know. You already explained that to Patrick after he sent you a giant cookie this morning.”

“ _He didn’t_.”

“Oh yes, he did. Don’t worry, it was delicious.”

David frowned, trying not to look interested in what Tom was telling him.“Not what I was worried about actually, but...okay, good to know. If he knows I don’t want to celebrate monthly anniversaries then what’s with the barbecue?”

“The barbecue was your father’s idea actually. The whole family seemed to think it was a cause for celebration. You were outnumbered.” Tom shrugged theatrically as though to say _waddya gonna do_?

“Of course I was,” David groaned. “This whole thing is just-”

“Tempting fate, I know. You mentioned that earlier too. Patrick put forth the argument that it wouldn’t kill you to trust someone for once, maybe let yourself enjoy this.”

None of this made any sense. It was stupid and pointless and overly-sentimental, but David had once tolerated a three week long relationship with a guy who only spoke in the third person. An anniversary barbecue was stupid but at least it had sliders. “This is what I break up with him over?”

Tom looked at him, confused. “What makes you say that?”

“I just,” he paused, wondering if he was missing something here. “I asked you to skip ahead to the day that I ruin this whole relationship. You’re telling me I hit the nuclear option over a jumbo sized cookie and some grilled meats?”

At that moment Alexis came around the corner with a pretty red-headed woman in tow. They passed within inches of Tom and David, not registering their presence.

Tom put a hand on David’s shoulder. “You wanted me to skip to the heartbreak.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

He nodded solemnly. “Just wanted to remind you - I’m giving you what you asked for.”

“Rachel?” Patrick's voice came from the table. It had an oddly strained quality to it. “W-what are you doing here?” 

“What are you doing here? I've been texting you for two days.” The young woman, Rachel apparently, sounded as confused as David felt.

“Wait, Patrick is your fiance?”

  
  
Alexis’s words sent a jolt down David’s back. 

“Uh, I'm sorry you have a fiance?” Future David asked. David expected to hear outrage in his own voice, but instead all he heard was the hurt.

“No. I - I mean I don't _now_. But yes, at some point I mean we we were-”

“Patrick, what's going on here?” Rachel demanded.

At that, Future David pushed back from the table. “Okay, um, I just think I might need a sec.” 

Patrick called out for him, but he was already making a beeline for his room.

David turned to Tom, his stomach suddenly feeling oddly hollow. 

“What is this?” he asked.

“The heartbreak.” 

He snapped his fingers, and David found himself inside the motel room he shared with Alexis. It looked considerably more lived in than when Tom had first plucked David from it. Future David had acquired some nicer bedding at some point, and Alexis’s belongings seemed to have spread over any and all available surfaces in the room.

Future David was pacing the room when Patrick came in behind him.

“David, I need to explain a couple of things.”

“Um, what would be the main one, do you think?” David winced at the sound of hurt turning into anger in his own voice.

“Rachel and I were engaged, but I called it off before I moved here.”

“Okay, you know what, you don't need to explain yourself.”

”I think that I do.”

“No, I know you do, that's just what I'm supposed to be saying in the moment, so please continue.”

David rolled his eyes at his own dramatics. He just wanted to hear Patrick’s explanation.

“Okay um, we got together when we were in high school, and we've been on and off ever since. I don't know...we always just sorta fell back into it. Anyway, she's been reaching out and expecting us to get back together for the past few months.”

“Whoa, over the past few months? And you didn't think to tell me about this? You stood in front of me and told me to trust people.”

“I know.” David saw Patrick’s eyes turn down and knew that he was already punishing himself for that.

“When I was perfectly fine not trusting people. Not trusting people is what I'm used to. It is my comfort zone. But next thing I know, there's an oversized cookie on my doorstep, and you are telling me that I have nothing to worry about!” David heard the pain cracking through his own voice now, the defensiveness.

“I didn't want it to affect what we have. Okay? And I mean it when I tell you that you have nothing to worry about. Because no matter how hard I tried with her, it just never felt right. And up until recently, I didn't understand why.” 

His voice broke on the last word and for the first time since this whole ordeal began David wished that he was more than just a ghost haunting his own life. He wanted to reach out and touch Patrick, to forgive him on his future self’s behalf. Because he knew himself; he knew what was coming.

“David, I've spent most of my life not knowing what right was supposed to feel like, and then I met you. And everything changed. _You_ make me feel right, David.”

David turned to his future self and even though he knew he couldn’t hear him, he tried anyway. “ _Don’t._ Don’t do it.”

Future David was fighting back tears. “That is quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard anyone say...outside of the Downton Christmas Special". His voice shuddered as he drew in a large breath.

“It's the truth,” Patrick pleaded.

“I know, umm, it's just that my truth is that I am damaged goods-”

“Stop it!” But Future David couldn’t hear him.

“ - and this has really messed things up for me. And I think I need some time with it.”

David turned to Tom. “Stop this, right now. Time out.”

But Patrick was already turning around, giving David what he wanted. He turned back to his Future Self. “Don’t let him go you dick!”

For a brief second, it seemed as though Future David had actually heard him. He called out, stopping Patrick at the doorway. David felt his heart rise up and then plummet back down as Future David merely asked Patrick to grab him some food from outside.

David turned to Tom. “What the hell was that?”

“That was Patrick, breaking your heart.”

“This wasn’t what I meant and you know it.”

Tom levels him with an even stare. “I never said that you’d be the one to hurt him. You assumed.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me otherwise? You knew! You knew this was going to happen!”

“I had to! This was important. You are so damn pessimistic about every relationship you’ve even considered starting, which is why most of the time you just don’t. You expect the absolute worst from people, you expect them to hurt you.”

“Well this hardly disproves my point, does it?”

“The point isn’t that people can hurt you, the point is that some people are worth getting hurt for. This isn’t the birthday clown escaping into the night, or Sebastien Raine using you and kicking you to the curb. This is…” he searches for the words, ones that encapsulate what people are capable of putting each other through. “Human error.”

“This was your goal all along? To convince me to be a good enough person to have my heart crushed? Well guess what - I’ve had that happen to me plenty without ever having to change anything about myself.” He paced the room once, twice, and spun back to Tom on the third to add, “With the bonus of getting to live in actual civilization with access to full treatment spas.” 

“You’re telling me you’d rather have a spa day than four blissfully happy months with Patrick?” Tom asked with disbelief that bordered on contempt. “Can you even remember the last time you considered yourself happy with your life for four consecutive months?”

David crossed his arms defensively. He knew his answer to that question but didn’t want to give Tom the satisfaction of being right yet again.

“What’s the point?” he finally asked. “Yeah, fine, four good months, that’s great. But now it’s over. That can’t possibly be worth a lifetime of being stuck in this town. I don’t care if you consider the version of me that would be stuck here an upgrade or not. It’s not a fair trade.”

Tom sighed in a way that David was starting to find infuriatingly familiar. “Two points. One: Life isn’t fair. I shouldn’t need to explain that one to you. And two: who said it was over?”

\-----

They were standing inside Rose Apothecary. David was tidying up a display while Patrick closed out the till. 

“Where - sorry, when are we?”

“We are one week past you finding out about Patrick’s ex-fiance.”

“And we - I mean they - have been working together his whole time? That sounds _profoundly_ uncomfortable.”

“It would be if Patrick hadn’t spent the past week covering for your shifts. Also texting you, and sending you gifts.”

“He did?”

“Mmhmm. So many gifts in fact, that even though you were ready to forgive him and get back together almost four days ago, give or take, you held out on telling him until today.”

David winced. “Oh god.”

“You’re actually surprised?”

“No,” David admitted reluctantly. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve let an ex shower me with gifts to try to win me back.”

“Oh I’m aware.” 

“But I only ever did that with people I had no intention of taking back!” he insisted. “Like that Scottish girl who offered me her castle for the summer after we broke up because I found out just how into watersports she was.”

“Do you remember what I told you about the problem with using people like things?”

“Okay, come talk to me after someone tries to pee on you in your sleep. The castle was the least she could do.”

Tom considered it for a second and decided the kinky Scottish girl was not the hill he wanted to die on to make his point. “Be that as it may, old habits really do die hard, because you dragged out your break up with Patrick for far longer than it needed to be. All for, how did he put it...oh yes: an advent calendar of apologies.”

David groaned. 

“What?” Tom asked. “I thought it was a nice little turn of phrase.”

“I thought this alternate version of me was supposed to be smarter.”

“When did I say that?”

David thought back to his first meeting with the angel and couldn’t actually recall the specific phrasing. “Well, maybe you didn’t say it outright but it was definitely implied. You definitely mentioned happier and less selfish.”

“You’re in love David. In the thousands of years I’ve been watching your kind, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one person actually get smarter when they fall in love. It has this fantastic ability to make fools of you all.”

David, having never been in love, could offer no rebuttal. But then he remembered the god awful Christmas medley he and his mother performed at every Rose family holiday party since he was old enough to hold a microphone. Every year he begged her not to do it, and every year he swallowed his pride and got up there with her. What did he do it for, if not for love?

“What about the more selfless part? I sure as shit remember you mentioning that.”

“So you were paying attention, that’s nice to hear.” David flipped him off. “I said that you become less selfish. _Become_ being the operative word. It’s a process, you don’t just change who you are over night.”

Behind him, Patrick flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED and threw the lock. “Okay, David, well I'm gonna go to dinner, and if you wanted to join me, and pay for it, that could be a start.”

“Yeah, maybe I could do that. I just think I have something to do first.” Future David pulled out a chair and motioned for Patrick to sit.

“What is this?” 

“Consider this my olive branch.” He walked to the back of the store, and bent over a small desk. He must have been turning on a set of speakers, because in the next second David heard a synth beat that he would have recognized anywhere.

Future David turned around spun around and bounced along in time with the opening notes. 

David turned to Tom. “Wait, what in the actual fuck is this?”

Tom smiled. “Part of the process.”

Then Future David opened his mouth, and Tina Turner’s voice rang out. 

“ _I call you when I need you, my heart is on fire_ …”

David’s jaw dropped. He didn’t do stuff like this. Singing Deck the Halls for a room of acquaintances that are barely listening because they hear it every year is one thing. This is so much more...intimate. 

Future David was singing - well, kind of - directly to Patrick. And he was doing it with gusto. He swooped and circled around Patrick, eyes closed, throwing himself into the song completely.

David found that words were failing him. His instincts told him to try to stop himself somehow, to save himself from a crushing wave of embarrassment. But then he saw Patrick’s face. He expected him to be laughing by now, doubled over at the sight of Future David making an absolute fool of himself. Instead, Patrick was giving David his full attention. He was smiling, but David didn’t get the impression that he was just getting a kick out of watching him embarrass himself.

There was something else in his eyes that David found harder to place. When Future David began to wrap up the first chorus, it clicked: pride. Future David was making a fool of himself, and Patrick was so damn proud of him for it.

“All the ways I could have made penance, and this is what I came up with?” He looked at Tom, who was tapping a foot to the song, but didn’t offer him an explanation.

Future David reached the end of the song and collapsed on top of Patrick, who threw his arms up like he was crossing the finish line with David. He reached down and pulled the breathless Future David up and into his lap. He held his face in his hands and looked at him like he was seeing the sun.

“Good olive branch.” He slid a hand behind David’s neck and pulled him into a kiss, only allowing for a break when David pushed away to catch his breath.

“Might pass out for a quick sec,” he wheezed. “Most physical thing I’ve done,” - _gasp_ -, “since the last time we had sex.”

Patrick threw his head back and laughed. “Well performing in a leather sweater in the middle of August was, you know, _a choice_.”

Future David looked down at himself and back at Patrick like something wasn’t quite translating for him. “But I look really good in this sweater.”

Patrick looked at him with pure exasperation and affection. “Yeah...you really do.”

Tom reached out and tapped David’s arm to get his attention. David found it hard to look away from the two of them. Tom must have realized that because he tugged at David's arm and said, “It’s probably best if we go now. Unless you want to hang around and watch yourself blow Patrick in the stockroom.”

“Ugh,” David screwed up his face in distaste. “Seriously, the _most_ uncouth person I’ve ever met.”

Tom shrugged. “Well I’m not actually a person so...”

David glared at him.

“C’mon, we’re only going outside. Take a walk with me.”

Tom took his arm and steered it toward the sidewalk. They began to walk in the direction of the cafe. 

“Do you know what you just saw?”

David considered the question. “A reminder of all the reasons I refused to let my straight girlfriends talk me into doing drag shows?”

“I’m going to need you to tone down the sarcasm by about ten to fifteen percent for this conversation, alright?”

David, still thinking of Patrick and the look in his eyes, nodded. “Alright.”

“What you just saw, to spare us both a game of twenty questions, was possibly the most important moment in your life. In this version of it anyway.”

“I don’t think that speaks volumes about the kind of life I’d be leading here.”

“Okay then,” replied Tom, clearly prepared for how hard of a sell this was going to be. “Can you name one other instance in your entire life where someone you love hurt you, and you were able to forgive them?”

David could think of a long list of grudges and an even longer list of people he forgave that _didn’t_ deserve it, but never someone he’d loved.

“How about a time when you hurt someone you love, and they were able to forgive _you_?”

Silence.

“Here’s another two parter: last time you made someone proud of you, or that you actually felt proud of yourself?

He allowed David a whole minute to think of an answer, though it was obvious after the first ten seconds that none would be forthcoming.

“You said that moment didn’t speak volumes to the life you’d be leading here. I think it speaks volumes to the life you’ve been leading up until now.”

They passed a park bench and Tom inclined his head for David to take a seat. David felt conflicted about, well, everything. No part of him could deny that this version of himself had fallen in love with Patrick, and he couldn’t blame him. He seemed to be a good person, by almost any definition he could conceive of. And he was nothing like the people David had surrounded himself with for his entire life. 

But what did that say about David’s ability to spend his life with someone like that? Would the novelty wear off? How long before he wanted gallery openings more than a night in with pizza and a baseball game on TV? How long could he prefer sharing dinner at the Cafe Tropical over grabbing late night drinks at Soho House? How long would Patrick be enough for him? Or, if he was being honest with himself, how long would he be enough for Patrick?

After all, that was the realest possibility. There was no point coming up with potential inadequacies for Patrick when he had plenty of his own to bring to the table. How many times could David dip into the Tina Turner catalogue whenever he screwed up (and there were definitely going to be more screw ups) before Patrick stopped finding it charming? How many times would he be fine with David having to reschedule a date night because he was overdue for handwashing his most delicate knits? What if they moved in together, something David had never done with anyone, romantic partner or otherwise, and Patrick discovered that twenty-four hours a day of David was about twenty three more than he could handle? 

Tom’s voice pulled him from his introspection.

“You want to tell me what’s on your mind David?”

“What, you’re telling me you don’t already know?” he snapped, harsher than he’d meant to. Tom didn’t seem to mind.

“I can’t actually read your mind. I just - ,” he paused, looking for the right phrase, “I just pay very close attention.”

“You know, it really doesn’t seem like the most exciting job in the universe. Watching people, day in, day out. Unless you get assigned like, Lady Gaga, or a minor dictator, or something.”

Tom waved his hand in a ‘so-so’ motion. “Celebrities and dictators are overrated. You forget, we spend our days waiting for that one in a billion shot that someone has the opportunity to change their life. You know what the rich and the powerful rarely want to do?”

David shrugged.

“ _Change_.”

David considered what Tom was telling him, and thought back to the moment the revenue service had shown up at his family's door with a piece of paper that gave them permission to dismantle their entire life.

“So if my family had never lost all their money, I would never have gotten this kind of offer from you?”

“Unlikely,” Tom admitted. 

“Lucky me,” David replied, in a tone that implied he was anything but.

He felt a sharp pain explode behind his right ear. He ducked his head and turned to see Tom pulling his hand back.

“What the hell?!”

“You’re goddamn right, lucky you. You just witnessed the moment one of the best people you will ever have the chance to know fell in love with you.”

“That’s the second time you’ve hit me!” David rubbed at the back of his head. “Angels shouldn’t hit people! That should be like, rule number one in your employee manual.”

“You think there’s a manual for this?”

“How should I know?! You’re telling me you’re just winging this?”

Tom leaned back and rubbed his eyes in a tired gesture. “Yeah, actually, I am.”

“Are you kidding me?” David asked with more disbelief than outrage. “You’re asking me to give up my entire life as I know it and you’re just pulling some fake-it-til-you-make-it schtick with my very existence?”

“I always think it’s going to be easy. I think it’s because I can see the bigger picture. I already know how things are going to turn out, and _every_ time I convince myself that if I can just get one of you to to see even a tiny sliver of what I can then it’ll be the easiest choice you’ve ever made.”

“Wait a minute,” David demanded. “You told me I was only the third person you’ve done this with. The other two - what happened to them?”

Tom ran a hand down in his face in a tired gesture. He fixed David with an empty stare, and that was all the answer David needed.

“They turned you down, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Tom admitted hollowly. “Yeah, they said turned me down.”

“I feel like that would have maybe been useful information to have before I agreed to go on this stupid...journey...vision quest...whatever you want to call it.”

“You never would have come if I had.”

“Mmhmm, that’s correct. I also wouldn’t let a doctor operate on me if he’d killed the only other two patients he’d ever treated. I’m kind of picky when it comes to stuff like that.”

They both watched a couple walking past with their dog. The man had one hand on the leash and the other intertwined with his partner’s. David saw her wiggle his fingers against his and heard the man laugh as they turned the corner and disappeared. 

Tom turned back to David, and David recognized the look of disappointment in his eyes. He’d seen it from his father, a number of teachers, and one particularly unpleasant vocal instructor throughout the course of his life. He’d heard it all before; he sat quietly and waited for Tom to lay into him. When it came, Tom spoke not with anger, but disappointment. 

“I show you the only friend you’ve ever made who is actually worth having in your life, and you call her ‘the help’. I show you the sweetest, kindest man in this whole town tell you that you changed how he viewed his entire life and validated who he is as a person, and all you can do is wonder how long it will be until you fuck it up. You have found a way to undermine or dismiss everything I’ve shown you, and for what? So you can go back to New York with whatever you consider to be a clear conscience?”

David wanted to point out that his conscience was doing just fine until Tom had dragged him into this whole thing, but he bit his tongue. There was a question that had been nagging at him from the back of his mind for a while now, but he was hesitant to breathe life into it by saying it aloud. Tom, despite his insistence that he couldn’t read David’s mind, seemed to be able to tell something else was on his mind.

“David,” he huffed. “Please just say something, _anything_ , to make me believe this whole thing wasn’t a total waste of my time.”

“I’m wondering,” he paused, knowing this was his last chance to stop himself before there’d be no putting the genie back in the bottle. Tom looked at him expectantly but said nothing. “I’m wondering if...if it were Patrick you were showing all this to….I mean - if it were his choice to make - ”

He tried to finish the thought but the words wouldn’t come.

“You wonder if he would choose you,” Tom finished for him.

David ran a tired hand through his hair and fell back into the bench with a dull thud. “I’m not an easy person,” he said, more to himself than anyone. “I know I’m self-absorbed, which is...it’s me. It’s fine, it’s...whatever. But I haven’t gone ‘full-Moira’ in terms of self awareness just yet.”

Tom spared him a kind smile. “And you never do, in case you were wondering.”

“Mmm,” David hummed. “Comforting.”

“So what does this have to do with Patrick?”

“I’m saying that big picture - I know this isn’t a bad deal. A really nice boyfriend, my own store.” He gestures back to the Apothecary and, presumably, to the man inside. “It’s not New York, but…” he shrugged, not really sure what scale he should be judging this place on. “There are worse places I could end up.” 

Tom raised his brows with a mixture of surprise and appreciation. “Well that’s certainly a step up from ‘hell hole’, I’ll give you that. I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming.”

“But,” David obliged with a nod, “I don’t know that it’s fair to Patrick. I wouldn’t just be choosing for me right? It’s his life too. And Stevie’s, my sister’s,” he added.

“You know, just because they don’t get to see a sneak preview doesn’t mean they’re choices are completely uninformed.”

David shook his head. “That’s like saying having your namesake custom design me a suit and renting one from Men’s Warehouse are basically the same thing. You can’t compare them.”

“I’m not,” Tom insisted. “I’m just saying that it’s not like they don’t know you. You’re not some unreadable book David; the people in your life know what they’re getting when it comes to you.”

David was surprised to feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He swiped them away quickly before they could grow any larger. “So you’re saying all those years I spent cultivating my mystique was for nothing?”

The question earned a laugh from Tom. “Insider tip for you - people aren’t half as mysterious as they think they are.” He waves a hand and David’s outfit. “You call it mystique but really it’s just wearing a lot of black clothing with nonsensical phrases.”

It was hard for David not to take that personally but it was hardly the most insulting thing Tom had said to him, or about him. 

“Would you like proof?” Tom asked.

“Proof of what?”

“Proof that the people in your life understand you better than you give them credit for.”

David was surprised to find himself actually considering the offer. Saying yes would turn him from a reluctant participant in this fucked up little quest to a willing one. It would make that inevitable moment in which he turned Tom down that much harder. And when had that happened? When had the idea that it would be hard to say no become a foregone conclusion? 

Somewhere between Stevie’s bed and the Apothecary’s stockroom he imagined.

He found himself thinking of his grade ten English class, which is strange given that he barely spared a thought when he was actually in it. He’d been assigned a Robert Frost poem to memorize and analyze in front of the class. Given his disdain for public speaking and schoolwork in general, he’d blocked most of the experience out as soon as it had happened. But now, almost twenty years later, he found that a few of the lines still lingered in his brain.

_He says the best way out is always through._

_And I agree to that, or in so far_

_As that I can see no way out but through_

_There you go Tom,_ he thought to himself with hollow satisfaction _, how’s that for mystique?_

He could feel Tom’s eyes on him. If he knew what David was going to say before he even said it, he was polite enough to keep it to himself.

“Fuck it,” David sighed. “Show me.”

  
  



End file.
